


A Tall Ship

by Samarkand12



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: All The Girls He Loved Before, F/M, Post-Chosen, Slow Burn Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:49:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 28,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22324366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Samarkand12/pseuds/Samarkand12
Summary: Some time after the fall of Sunnydale, Xander Harris is down Mexico way on vacation after time spent in Africa.  He's older, perhaps not particularly wiser...but he's got his head together.And just like in the beginning, a blonde set his world awry.
Relationships: Xander Harris/Buffy Summers
Comments: 14
Kudos: 44





	1. Chapter 1

Xander had an extremely important decision to make. Possibly vital to the world. Apocalypse averting, even. 

In one hand, Dos Equis. In the other, itchy testicles. Beer. Scratching himself. Yeasty, alcoholic goodness versus the bliss of fingertips relieving himself of the curse of errant grains of sand. Long used to quick decisions under pressure, Xander allowed himself the luxury of contemplating the many consequences of each choice. Beer. Scratch. Scratch, or beer. Narrowing his single eye, he committed himself to a bold course of action.

One hand slid into a pocket of his beach shorts while he lifted the bottle of Dos Equis to his lips. Scratch. Slurp. Ah. Doing both. That was Xander Harris, wild man and world adventurer, living in the danger zone with the Ice Man.

Xander kept the scratchage discreet. Progreso was a Mexican beach town that often hosted scruffy gringo backpackers visiting Merida. Still, there was "ugly American" and "clearing out the town". Definitely keep this low-pro. Propping up his feet on the table, he paused with getting his buzz on to line his stomach with the last of his tacos al pastor. A dash of diced habanero from the bowl beside the plate naturally required more beer to cool down the fire. Perfect. 

He took in the scene framed by splayed feet clad in sandals made from old tire treads and leather scraps. It was still weird to look out over the ocean at twillight and not see the sun setting. California habits died hard. The beach scene was more familiar. Meridan kids escaping the inland heat wandered about on the beach on the other side of the malecon. A few foreigners brave enough to weather the tail-end of a Yucatan August mingled with the locals. Xander could hear the tell-tale accent of an Australian braying from the restaurant next door. After traveling Africa for a little over two years, Xander wondered if there was a single place on Earth that didn't have a resident Australian ex-pat out on gap year wanderbout. Nearly a decade of caution checked for people just a bit too pale beneath their tan, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Out in the Gulf were a few pleasure craft, some fishing boats returning from a day on the water, and one smallish container ship coming in to dock.

Xander made a scribbling gesture in mid air to summon the waitress. The owner's daughter brought the bill with a smile and a Look. Xander had often seen that Look from a variety of women. It had taken him some time to figure out that it meant the eyepatch and scars meant "yum" instead of "smile while reaching for the pepper spray". One day, should he ever happen to visit Hell, he would thank Caleb for the secret of babe attraction. Maybe with sulphuric acid and ferrets. Xander merely gave her a non-committal smile while he counted out the pesos. Finding and training first potentials and then slayers in Africa meant any female under twenty-five was firmly out of romantic consideration. Maybe a look, never a touch. He doubled the tip to compensate.

Xander self-checked. Buzzed but not tottery. Alright. He unlocked the Flying Pigeon from the lamp post. The black Chinese single-speed had a frame seemingly built of girders and tack-welding, rod brakes that had to return from their smoke break around back before stopping, and tires that transmitted every crack into the pavement into his fillings. It had also survived ten months of the worst of African roads, carried a Ugandan Slayer perched on the rear rack fifty miles to a clinic, and needed no fuel beyond the inexhaustible fount of Xander's adrenaline. Settling himself on the leather-covered sprung saddle, Xander pedaled at an easy pace through Progreso's light traffic. 

Past the beach strip of shops and restaurants, the faded manor houses that once housed Merida's vacationing upper class became the more modest homes of fishermen and port workers. Poor compared to what he had once known in the US. Compared to some places in Africa, mansions in their own right. The tick-tick of the crankset and the hiss of rubber on asphalt lulled him into a sense of peace that brought thoughts of an ice-filled cooler of beer. And, just maybe, more scratching. At the edge of town, he pulled up to the small cottage he had rented. The price was cheap this far away from the shore; around it on three sides was the flat scrubland that covered the peninsula. Inside it was nothing special: a big room with a small kitchen on one side, a "bathroom" that was a single showerhead in the wall beside a toilet and sink, and a tiny bedroom. Pretty spare, especially considering the furniture consisted of one army cot and a faded rattan chair. More than enough.

Out back was the reason he had chosen this place over the nicer digs in town. A large concrete-walled work shed covered by a corrugated steel roof was attached to the back. An air space between room and walls provided just enough ventilation from making it a complete hell in the sun. He had found some broken-down lathes and other machining tools scattered about while cleaning it out. A workshop, maybe having to do with the fishing fleet. Mexicans around here often mixed up business and home, running small shops and businesses from the same houses they slept in. He had replaced the old junk with sawhorses and a large work-table knocked up from scrap lumber. Africa had taught him not to buy when you could cobble together something from junk. Cheaper, would last as long. Waste not. Tools were stored in a bright red toolbox he had carried all over Africa. Slayers had actually risked their lives to retrieve it in the wake of one disaster after another. Xander had added some electric tools bought second-hand in Merida.

Spread out on the table were several large cardboard templates sent by the designers in Portland. He had picked them up from the UPS office in Merida. A stack of plywood was ready in the corner. Out of habit, he checked the sheets for voids and cracks. Marine plywood was a better bet, but way more expensive. There was something to be said for working with the best. Still, his instinct for picking out good wood held good. The cheaper building-grade plywood was adequate for the project. Yawning, Xander locked up his workshop. Start tomorrow. Slumping in the rattan chair, he picked up the much-thumbed paperback book. He had come across the book in a hostel in Nairobi while recovering from a fever. John Slocum's late 19th-century prose was far different than Kerouac's jazz-cat stream of consciousness in _On the Road_. _Sailing Around the World_ awakened the same longing as the book that had propelled him to a wild life of adventure and self-discovery. Well, to Oxnard.

Gah. Beer now.

Reading by the light of of a Coleman, Xander sipped one last Corona as he lost himself in Slocum's tale of navigating through the Magellan Straits. 

+++++

Xander bopped his head in time to the kwaito beat from the CD player. Working up the Johannesburg Patrol with Mandisa and Elize had addicted him to the bouncy township hip-hop. Bacon and eggs sizzled in the skillet on the stove. It had taken him a long, long time to get back a taste for pork. After the Herbert incident, Willow used to joke he was more kosher than Ira. Roughing it in the bush, though, meant you ate what would not kill you outright. Being squeamish, especially when sitting down to negotiate with tribal elders, could easily offend people you needed to rely on. He hadn't actually had to eat a sheep's eyeball, but there had been moments. He had practically kissed the first Twinkies display he had seen at LaGuardia.

Slipping his breakfast onto a plate, he poured himself a cup of coffee from the cowboy-style percolator on the other stove burner. Some toast popped up fresh, a little OJ to ease the slight hangover from yesterday's mild beer bender, and you had the Hungry Man Harris-style. He logged onto his ChosenNet account with his battered Nabbit Electronics portable. David Nabbitt had appointed himself hardware designer as well as eccentric billionaire funder. Xander's was the twentieth version--hardened electronics, military-grade crash resistance, armored casing, and an encrypted satellite-phone attachment. Marks One through Nineteen had been beta-tested--to destruction--during his African grand tour. That was how one learned, for example, that consumer electronics were not usually designed with resisting an attack by a Cape Buffalo in mind.

He resisted logging onto the main areas of ChosenNet. There had been the one time he had checked out the image galleries. Finding Dawn's portfolio of Spander yaioi drawings by her mis-setting privacy permissions had nearly prompted him to gouge out his other eye. And, thank you, no going onto the discussion forums. The "Spike vs. Angel" thread had grown to need its own server farm. He stuck to his email account. Nothing major major. A little paperwork from the Botswana Academy, reports about the Lagos Patrol brokering a peace between two delta demon clans, the usual. No apocalypse warnings. Ten minutes and he was done. Xander spent the rest of the time finishing a chapter of Slocum and rereading a section of the _SAS Survival Manual_.

The water should be ready by now. Xander tested a dribble from the shower head. Lukewarm. It took time for the little propane-fueled water heater to warm up. He washed quickly under the spray to avoid draining the tinaco mounted on the roof. Not that it took long anymore. Half his shower time used to be spent washing his shaggy hair. Anya used to love running her fingers through it after-- He shook his head. No. The first week in Lagos had taught him that a "number two" with electric clippers stopped all manner of woes related to heat, sweat, and bugs. He washed his teeth from the tap, ignoring the turista advice to only use bottled water. Montezuma's Revenge quailed against an iron colon tested by African water supplies. Stropping his straight razor, Xander trimmed off the scruff on his cheeks. He left the little moustache and beard he was experimenting with. Was it a Riker or Xanatos? Only time would tell. He shuddered while popping out the plastic conformer and rinsing out his left eye socket. Nasty feeling, even after two years of doing it twice a day.

What was today? Xander considered. He had the plans and the tools. No more lounging. Today was a working day. He grabbed some clean clothes from his much-repaired ALICE pack. Cargo pants and a khaki T-shirt, very Private Xander. Man with a purpose, man on a mission. He selected the leather-thong-and-patch Sagal had made. One pocket of his pack was filled to bursting with eyepatches sent to him from the African Slayers and the old Sunnydale potentials. Vi's glitter-patch was a favorite for formal occasions. A quick ride around town to burn off the last of the beer and getting on with work before the sun got too hot. Slipping on his sandals, he rode his bike down the walkway to the street. Soon the welcome ache of a hard ride spread through his legs. Just what he needed. Zig-zagging through back streets, he turned onto the malecon. This early the tourists were still lounging in bed. He only had to dodge a delivery boy on his Honda Cub.

A flash of gold caught his attention. No matter how hard he tried, he could never ignore that hue. Africa had been a relief in a way. Aside from foreigners or Afrikaaners, all the hair colours were some shade of black or brown. Nothing to remind him. The young woman eating near his usual table in "his" restaurant was dressed much more smartly than most in Progreso. Dating Cordelia had given him some inkling about clothes, and her tailored dress and blouse were several steps above pret-a-porter. Vague memories of Cordelia's lectures about Milanese fashion told him the red jacket draped over her seat back was Italian in cut. He couldn't resist checking out the way her crossed legs showed a hint of thigh. Buffy would have drooled over the heels she--

"Xander?" the woman said, raising up her stylish sunglasses.

Hey, she had hazel eyes. Just like--

"Xander!"

Wow, she even sounded exactly like--

"Xander! Look out!"

Buffy?

Xander looked up just in time to see his front tire sideswipe the stone bench running along the inland side of the sea wall.

"WAAAAUUUUGHHH!"

Thud.

Ow. Thank you, soft and yet still so hard beach sand.

"Omigod!" Buffy stood over him, his bicycle in one hand. "Are you okay?"

"Hey, Buffy," Xander managed. "Just like old times."


	2. Chapter 2

"Explain to me again," Xander said, holding a bar towel full of ice to the back of his head, "what this has to do with Irkutsk?"

They sat, two steaming coffees before them, at his usual table. In the background the waitress clattered at the sink. Given the enthusiasm with which she was washing dishes and the jealous glares aimed at them, he decided to change eating places before he ended up getting served a taco a la Amy for lunch. Oh well, he heard the ceviche two doors down was amazing. Buffy seemed totally oblivious to what was a new customer for a nearby vengeance demon. He had never seen her--well, what was the word? Poised? The last he had seen her, at the airport before leaving for Nigeria, there has still been the shadows of sadness and exhaustion about her. Now, close up, he saw her outfit was wrinkled from long wear and there was just the faintest whiff of a day without a bath. Yet she sat as if she were at some trattoria in Rome, having biscotti and espresso. 

"I've been in Japan for a few months," Buffy explained again. "Giles has been working with the Pacific Rim slayers, especially this great girl from Osaka. Satsu, a real find. So, okay, I'm taking the red eye back."

"Following you so far." Xander winced when a particularly energetic smash of crockery indicated they were outstaying their welcome. "Still not getting Irkutsk."

"I was in the lounge at Narita, having an appletini," Buffy continued, "when someone from the airline told me that my checked luggage had been sent elsewhere."

"Ah. Irkutsk." Xander frowned. "Where the hell is Irkutsk?"

"Siberia, I think." Buffy shook her head. "Not important. So, little bit grumbly, but this happens. Even though I had packed these totally kicky boots Satsu pointed out for me in Shinjuku. One of a kind. Not that I'm bitter--"

"You didn't disembowel them, did you? 'Cause, I'm thinking that goes against our image."

"Of course not." She drummed her fingers. "But, um, we can have people hurt, right? Right?"

"Wrong," Xander admonished. "Very wrong."

"Pffft," she pouted. "Stupid being on the side of kittens and rainbows. Oh, where was I? Irkutsk. Um, figured I could buy an outfit in Vancouver during the layover and my luggage would catch up to me eventually. Then when I got in I found out about the hijacking." 

"Chechen terrorists hijacked--" Xander concentrated. "No, the terrorists hijacked the plane. In Irkutsk."

"And then the Russian SWAT team stormed the plane." Buffy sighed. "I heard everyone except the terrorists got out when the explosives went off."

"And the kicky boots are--"

"Charcoal with the rest of my luggage," Buffy said. "So there I am, in Vancouver, after many many appletinis. Yay, Slayer alcohol resistance. That's when I see the ad for Mexico."

"Now things become--" Xander considered. "More confusing. How does this tie in with your luggage in Irkutsk?"

"I knew you were here. Giles is busy in Jolly Olde running the intelligence branch, Willow in Rio was too far away, Dawn's still off in Turkey doing her summer archaeological dig at the Order of Dagon site."

"And I was the closest one," Xander replied, "who understood what it feels like to have all your clothes be in a smoking crater."

"More like I had a sudden need for sun and the beach." Buffy smiled shyly. "And a friend. I know this vacation of yours is important. I can get it's all about the getting away. It has just been-- I remembered it has been so long."

"I know." Xander patted her hand. "C'mon, my place gives even the old basement a run for the money when it comes to 'dire', but it has a shower. You've got someplace to stay?"

"I was just in a hurry to get here," Buffy said. "Went straight from Merida Airport to here. I only stopped at a mall--and, wow, I didn't know they had actual malls here--to pick up some clothes.And-- If you don't mind, I'd like to stay with you. Just for one night?"

"Mi casa et su." Xander grabbed the shopping bags beneath her chair.

"Can I say one thing?"

"Sure?"

"OMIGOD YOUR HAIR!"

+++++

Xander often wished he had learned "measure twice, cut once" a lot earlier in his life. Once you made the pass with the saw, it was all over. Metaphorically speaking, a little more measuring in his life would have earned him a lot less embarassment and pain. Not to mention fewer failed-wedding debts and rebar sticking out of his former girlfriend. So he took his time drawing the patterns on the plywood. The smaller pieces he traced with a sharpened carpenter's pencil from tacked-down patterns. Others he had to draw free hand with T-square and bent PVC tubing to get the curves just right. Slowly, lines on paper became marks on wood. Transom. Bulkheads. Hull. Blueprints became buildings, maps became territory beneath his feet. The image becoming real. Measure twice, then cut. Everything coming out just so.

Of course, he thought as he went back in the house for a breather, life had a funny way of redrawing everything.

Every glazed shutter in the windows of the house were open to catch a faint sea breeze. A creaking ceiling fan did its best to stir the humid air. In one corner, a multi-colored hammock hung from the wall hooks that were in every room of a Yucateno's home. Buffy lay there, a book in her lap and an iPod's earphones in her ears. Two years, he thought. Plenty of letters and emails and even a holiday satellite phone calls. Seeing her now, in the flesh, was still a bit of a shock. 

She had changed after her shower. White scoop-back top with ties at the neck, a knee-length turquoise dress, and a funky wooden hairclasp for her ponytail painted like a butterfly. A pair of flat sandals were tossed underneath the hammock. Probably an outfit she had picked up on auto-pilot at the mall. So perfect on her, it brought him back to the days when linoleum had serious erotic potential. First falling off his bike, now perving on Buffy. You really are taking it old-school, aren't you, Harris? 

"Mmmm." Her eyes fluttered open.

"Not staring!" Xander exclaimed. "Not staring!"

"Whazza?" Buffy absently smoothed down her top. "How long was I asleep?"

"It's about three in the afternoon," Xander told her. He hadn't been staring! 

"Did I drool?" Buffy frowned. "Is there drooling?"

"Drool-free, Buffy." Xander returned to inflating her bed for the night. "Go ahead, sack out. Later, if you want, we can go into town or to the beach."

"You don't have to bother," Buffy said. "You've got your steeltoes on, which means you're working on a project."

"It'll keep," Xander replied. "My timetable's kinda manana."

"Liar. But thanks." Buffy arched her back. Cold showers, blizzards...linoleum... "Oh, this is heaven. And I should know. I could lie here forever. It's been a long time since I lazed."

"And here I thought you were all about the vida loca."

"That's dolce vita," Buffy corrected, "and it hasn't been much dolce. Life's been go-go-go for a while, even before Japan. The Vatican always wants a meeting, new girls coming to the palazzo for training. Not to mention setting up the European patrols. I think they've built a shrine to me at Eurail."

"I hoped you had a chance to rest," Xander said, "instead of the Godfather III routine."

"It's not all rush-rush." Buffy smiled. "Some days I go to the Uffizzi. Mom always wanted to visit it. Or Dawn and I would ride our Vespas into the mountains or to the Amalfi for the weekend."

"Not to mention making the clothing stores of Italy tremble before you."

"I stay totally within my salary," Buffy said. "Although, er, is it my fault that some people are really appreciative if I recommend their collections to slayers with generous clothing allowances?"

"Or asking eccentric billionaires to treat you," Xander admonished, "by sending them photos of you posing in outfits. Dawn told me about that scam. Cordy would have been proud."

"Ooops." Buffy worried her lower lip. "Here I am, being all what I did on my Roman Holiday, while you were out being Gunga Xan."

"Dawn needed a sister. You needed," Xander shrugged, "to be you for once. Me, I needed to work. I'm 16 Tons Guy."

"Two years, finding over a hundred slayers," Buffy said softly, "training a hundred more, setting up an entire network. No wonder you're taking a vacation. It must have been exhausting."

"It's not all dodging lions and sleeping on the ground," Xander said. "There's this huge split-log bench I carved for the front of the main lodge in Botswana. Evenings I would sit there with some bush tea and think: wow. I'm in Africa, leading a team of hot girls with superpowers for an international secret society that fights evil."

"With a cool eyepatch!"

"Rocking it like Sergeant Fury." Xander gave a Fonzie double-thumbs up.

"Seven years we spent, trying to keep everything from falling apart," Buffy mused. "And now, even though it's busy as ever, it's different. We're building something, Xander. I can feel it. Something amazing. I'm giving the girls we called something more than another bunch of memories and a short-shelf life."

"Now that's a Buffy inspirational speech we can keep."

"Mmmm." Buffy patted the hammock. "Know what I really, really have been missing? Snuggling with one of my best friends, like we did when watching movies at home. Join me?"

Flirty? Was she being flirty? No, she was just being nice. Flirty would have meant raincoats and high heels and panic. Tenatively, he shucked off his workboots and eased into the hammock. Buffy cozied up next to him. Xander had slept next to lots of women--well, girls--in the bush. Weathering a sandstorm outside of Mogadishu with Sagal, hiding in the jungle with a wounded Bethany when the Lord's Resistance Army raided her village He had gotten used to the press of a female body against his own. Just like a guy, only with more lumps and curves. And softness. And Buffy really did smell good after a shower. Was she wearing cinnamon lip gloss? 

Buffy rested her head against his shoulder. He felt her entire body go boneless as she dropped into sleep. Suddenly, everything fit. Just like at Revello Drive for a Saturday night movie marathon. They'd have on a Bollywood musical to amaze at for the strange, or some horrid sci-movie to snark at.. By the third, Willow would be drowsing on one side and Buffy on the other. Dawn would be sleeping with her back against his legs. Girls, yeah, but buds. His best buds. Just like old times.

Xander pillowed her head on his arm. Yeah, sometimes plans went out the window. That was okay. You dealt. In the end, he could get things fitting together after all.


	3. Chapter 3

Xander dozed while Anya cuddled up next to him. This was the best. Not that any of the other 31 Flavors of Anya were less amazing. There were the nooners when he got a chance to sneak home from work. Succubus and Strapping Peasant Lad was a favorite. Pommel horse, oh yeah. And then there was the thing with the tweed drag king outfit and the glasses and the riding crop and Xander you've been a very very bad boy for leaving Twinkie crumbs in the grimoires. Although they didn't do that one much because being around Giles the next day was pretty confusing, for reasons kept nailed down under the floorboards with the evil clowns. Cuddling Anya, though, was still the most awesome.

Just like the first time. For a few minutes after their first interlocking, she had snuggled up against him and hummed. Happy. Satisfied. With him. Some dork with no money and stuck in his parents' moldy basement, in charge of the fabric softener. And yeah, it had gone south a little while after. But she had kept after him with that weird Anya determination. Panzer divisions on vacation in France had less motivation when she focused on something. It could be rough. Especially when her massive lack of tact exposed every little fault. It wasn't like with Cordy, though. Cordy's snark always had a barb in it even when she was being fond. Anya could list his every stupid mistake in one breath, and take his away by praising things he never even noticed. It was like she just accepted it as part of who he was. That he could change them the way she had built up the magic shop, instead of ever being the eternal Zeppo.

Xander smiled. Anya had dyed her hair the shade he liked best. Not that he ever mentioned that, since that lead to Feelings About Her, which was guarded with barbed wires and Imperial Stormtroopers and alarms that went awooogah. He considered where his hand was. Currently, occupying the flatlands about her belly. Now, he could head down to the valley. There was supposed to be lots of hydroelectric potential there. Gushing, even, if developed right. Or Mr Palm could head north into the hills to explore the slopes and peaks. He decided to explore the plains for now. Anya purred as his fingers slipped under her shirt. Oh yeah, he thought while fingertips skimmed around her navel, worth the trip. She moaned when his lips slowly nibbled her neck. He said her name softly. Anya. Anya. Ahn.

"Oh, Elvis, you've never called me Anne before--"

Xander opened his single eye open. Not Ahn. Anne. Buffy Anne.

Oh.

There was advantages to having your heart ripped out of your chest by an angry primal spirit. It got you used to it happening again and again.

"Elvis?" Buffy bolted up. "Xander?"

"Classic," Xander rasped. "Just classic."

"Why were you calling me--" Buffy glanced down at her bared midriff. "Oh. Um. Hands."

"Uh-huh." Xander suddenly realized where his hand had wandered. "Crap. You have to believe me, I was out of it--"

"Not the worst way to wake up." Buffy stroked his temple. "Says the girl who woke up in a coffin, in a dress she would have said she wouldn't have been caught dead in. Getting extra-strength Xander snuggles? No comparo."

"This counts for a more than a friendly backrub while you scarf down Haagen Daaz," he said, hysterical laughter bubbling behind his lips, "This is just how Ahn wanted to be mourned, Although you're not over three hundred pounds, I didn't pick you up blind drunk in a seedy bar, and I didn't scream out your name when I came making it all awkward and sordid. But it was, you know, close."

"You're kidding!" Buffy paused. "Wait, this was Anya. Not kidding."

"That's Ahn for you." Slipping a finger under his patch, he wiped his left eye clear of tears from the outside corner in. "Knew exactly how to twist the knife even when she was sentimental. Fucker D'Hoffryn was right. Go for the pain, not the kill."

"This isn't a vacation," Buffy said. "You're here to grieve. There's no other reason you'd leave behind your girls."

"Giles called it a sabbatical." Xander grimaced. "Which is polite Watcherese for Harris is wigging and pull him out before he gets someone killed I, uh, got these episodes."

"Episodes?" Buffy paled. "Headaches? Do you feel sick? Did you get--"

"MRI and CAT scan in New York," Xander reassured her. "My braincells aren't doing the lambada. I-- The last two months things were slowing down. I was spending most of the time doing paperwork and training in Botswana. I had time to think,which, always a danger sign for me. I'd space out."

"Space out how?" Buffy's tone had that iron in it that boded ill for kleptomaniac sisters and evasive friends.

"Um...one time they found me sitting on that bench for six hours.. I'd lost all sight in my right eye."

"And I wasn't told?" Buffy snarled. "Me, Miss so-called Scythebearer? I sign the freaking budget and everything. One ex-Watcher is about to feel the wrath of my tiny yet manicured fists."

"Giles is in the clear," Xander insisted. "I only told him I was worn out. The African Slayers Council kept it on the down-low for morale. Kennedy handled the examination on her own dime."

"So the conspiracy widens!" Buffy grumped. 

"I was wrong," Xander said. "I admit it. This was just...private. Okay."

"Okay, although this is definitely coming up at the next High Council meeting," Buffy promised. "Xan, do you need space? I come all barging in, the last thing you need."

"Don't leave." Xander squeezed her wrist. "That was the first time I've thought about her without pain. Every time I dreamed about her, I shut it right out. I-- I actually got to spend some time with Ahn again."

"Oh." Buffy patted his shoulder. "Are you really, really sure you don't want me to book a hotel?"

"No, it's fine."

"I'm gonna get up and maybe take a cold shower." She smirked. "That was, um, a great wake up call."

"Don't forget the traditional furious masturbation sitting on the can." Xander screwed his eyes shut. "And there's some habanero sauce in the fridge, which should season the oh-so-flavorful foot I'm chewing on here."

Buffy softly laughed as she swung out of the hammock. Slumping back, Xander willed himself to dissolve into his component atoms from the white-hot humiliation burning in every cell of his body. Then he could drip through the hammock and the concrete, eventually ending up in the center of the earth. Please? No. Dammit, that meant actually getting up. He stumbled to the kitchen sink. Dunking his head into a sink full of cold water provided enough of a shock to wake him up. Okay, first things first, move Buffy's mattress into the private room. Move his cot out and away from where hot Slayer would be sleeping, possibly in skimpy pyjamas and don't for the love of God go there! No! Bad Xander, Another round of sink dunking helped.

Turning to arrange things for the night, he noticed the door to his workshop was open. Could have sworn he had shut it. Sandaled feet padded on the rough concrete within. Curious, he looked inside. Buffy moved among the patterns traced out on the plywood. An automatic warning that she shouldn't be in his workshop without proper footwear and goggles died when he spied her expression. Wonder. She was astonished. Buffy stared up at the plans of the project taped on the back wall. Polished fingernails traced over the cat-rig in the lees of the bow, the lines of the hull, the barn-door rudder in the stern. 

"A boat?" She turned to him, hazel eyes moist. "You're building a boat? Oh, this takes me back."

"You sailed?" Xander asked, surprised.

"Mmmmm." Buffy returned to gazing at the twenty-two foot catboat's plans. "Back in Sunnydale, ever notice I used to stare out at the sea whenever I was mopey or thinky?"

"A few times." Xander considered. "Sure, that time at the beach party, when Cameron tried to score with you."

"I was thinking about my grand-dad," Buffy said. "My dad's dad, Roger Summers. They weren't very close, some kind of issues. Grand-dad was closer with Uncle Terry, Celia's dad. Before Celia...got sick, she was always pestering grand-dad to take her on a boat ride. He had this little sailing dinghy, way smaller than this. He told her he'd take her out when she was old enough."

"She ever get that chance?" Xander leaned back against the doorjamb.

"The Kinderstod got her before--" Buffy knuckled away a tear. "I was at Uncle Terry's place in San Diego after the funeral. Grand-dad lived next door. And I suddenly wanted to take that last boat ride for Celia. That's when it started."

"He took you out?"

"Every weekend we could, and whole weeks in the summer." Buffy beamed. "I was grand-dad's first mate. I had the cutest little hat. It had gold braid and everything! 

"Only you?"

"Dad never bothered." Buffy's bright grin wavered at that. "Mom got seasick and Dawn was too young. So I had grand-dad all to myself--huh"

"What?" Xander cocked his head.

"Kinda funny to think, those might be one of the few real memories," Buffy considered, "I have left, before the monks mojoed me. It's so clear. Grand-dad would pipe me aboard at this boat ramp by Malibu. First few times he did the work, but later on he taught me more and more."

"Like knots," Xander said. "So that's where you learned to tie up Spike so good."

"My grand-dad did not teach me bondage fun!" Buffy exclaimed, horrified. "Although, funny how knowing sailor's knots comes in handy. I had wild macrame skills. You should have seen my plant hangers. I think I even gave Anya a few pointers."

"Oh." Xander prayed that came out casual rather than strangled squeak. Anya's ropework had been worthy of legend. "So, you were Sailor Senshi Buffy?"

"We would go up and down the coast." Buffy stared into some indefinable distance, leaning against his workbench as if perched on a gunwale. "Even camped under a boom tent during overnights to Catalina Island. Tragic lack of vanity mirrors and hairdryers in the morning. But I'd wake up to him cooking up coffee and biscuits on this portable stove at sunrise. Best times while they lasted."

"What happened? I mean, you never even looked at a boat when we were in Sunnydale." 

"Grand-dad died." Buffy picked at the folds of her skirt. "They found him the morning we were supposed to go on a trip. He left the boat to me but..."

"Not so much fun, anymore?" Xander drifted to her side.

"Not so the much." Buffy leaned her head against his shoulder. "Fourteen-year old girls can be so stupid. I was busy with skating lessons, and trying to get on the cheer squad. Real earthshaking important, no time to single-hand a boat even if I wanted to. Dad got tired of it being parked in the back yard, calling it a hole in the water you threw money into. He sold it to a guy up in Sausalito. Now you, when did you ever do go out on the briny blue?"

"Only sailing time I ever got," Xander admitted, "was when Tony convinced Ira to go half the cost on a power cruiser."

"How did that work out?"

"Dad smacked it into a small island a mile away from Sunnydale." Xander shrugged. "Then Ira got sunstroke and tried to claim it for Israel, and after five shots of Jack and a case of Black Label my dad wasn't going to let that go-- Yeah. Wills and me played Hi-Q in the cabin until the Coast Guard tasered dad into submission."

"Ouch," Buffy said.

"Never have I prayed harder for the onset of human cannibalism." Xander shrugged. "I found this book by a guy who sailed around the world. It connected with stories Ahn told me about how her family would go a-Viking in their longboats. She was more redistributionist than Randian in those days."

"You're gonna need a teacher," Buffy pointed out. "You can't learn to be a sailor by writing in for a course on a matchbook."

"My plan was more shipping it to the Botswana Academy," Xander said, ruefully. "Park by the end of the archery fields and make whooshing noises in the cockpit." 

"Well, now you have a first mate." Buffy hopped up. "Me"

"Really?" Xander's heart stuttered a bit at that. 

"Aye-aye, oh captain my captain!" Buffy whipped off a smart salute. "I can even be your Tool Time Girl. I have all the qualifications: look cute handing you stuff, move heavy things, and can mop your manly forehead of free of sweat."

"This is gonna take several months, Buff." Xander swallowed heavily at thoughts of Buffy and towelage. "Do you even have time? You've got running the Order of the Scythe and everything."

"I'll make the time," Buffy insisted. "We finally have the regional Slayer Councils up and running. The Sunnydale vets and the new recruits have even better training and experience when I was two years into my One Girl In the World days. If they need me for business, they can text me."

"You and me, together." Xander forgot any sense of humiliation, hugging her hard. "You're on. Just one thing."

"Anything, Xander."

"Elvis?" Xander did a Spock with an eyebrow. "As in blue suede shoes? You've got a yen for the King?"

A very long pause.

"Stojko." Buffy clapped her hands over her eyes. "Elvis Stojko. Canadian figure skater with this karate/dance routine. He was at the Nagano Olympics when he had this groin pull a-and I was the only one who could apply the ice and...then we were doing pairs and I was in the Oksana Baiul costume she won with in '94 and he did the lift and..."

Buffy's blush achieved the hue usually reserved for sunsets after major volcanic eruptions.

"We never say this to anyone, and I won't mention you felt me up."

"No power on this earth, Buff. No power on this earth."


	4. Chapter 4

Ordinarily, it had been Anya rather than Xander who had seen the erotic potential of construction worker gear. That was before Buffy decided "work safe" clothing meant denim overalls with no shirt underneath, steel-toed work boots, and her blonde hair done up in pigtails under a kerchief. He wasn't sure how this particular ensemble had shot ahead of mini-skirts, bikinis, and the infamous Leather Pants in his personal favorite fashions file. All he knew was that the first time she had posed for him for approval, he had damn near cut off his hand with a circular saw.

They manhandled the sections of hull into position. Instead of a cradle, the catboat was being assembled on a line of sawhorses. The major bulkheads were clamped into position upside down. The hull pieces were assembled around them, a few drywall screws securing them in place. Checking the seams between pieces, he slipped small shims of wood to keep a proper gap between them. Other areas with too much gap were "stitched" with a cable tie run through small holes drilled through the plywood. Every so often he had to shift the arrangement a little to keep the seams true. Satisfied, the two of them masked off the outside of the seams with tape.

The interior of the hull was lit by several lamps angled up. Ducking under, Buffy coated the interior of the seams with clear epoxy resin while Xander mixed up the putty. He stirred woodflour into another batch of resin until it was the consistency of peanut butter. Two large ziplock bags with a corner each cut out were filled to the brim. Together they squirted putty into the seams, filling the space between with a solid bead. A lot like grouting tile or caulking window frames. 

Glancing at Buffy, he saw her intent on her work. He had seen that expression so many times back in the library or the Magic Box, sparring with Giles or researching yet another dusty tome. For a second he could hear the click-clack of Willow's laptop and smell Giles' tea. In the background, Cordelia would "ew" over a really disgusting demonary entry. Or Anya would sunnily chatter about the even more disturbing details not included in the grimoires. The Scoobies, back in the day. Funny what you missed.

"I can't believe I'm building a boat." Buffy ran a plastic spoon down one seam, removing excess putty. "Usually I'm more about the random property destruction."

"For which I was always grateful," Xander commented. "Do you have any idea how much extra work I picked up fixing up places after your fights? The Bronze had me on retainer."

"A little kick-back would have been nice, by the way," Buffy said.

"I figure that's unethical," Xander mused. "First you get a little taste. Then you're down at Willy's, scheduling rampages with the demon underworld. No, I had to protect your honour."

"Less purity, more for the shoe fund." Buffy stripped off a torn glove. "Need another here, Xan."

"Help yourself," he said, holding out the box of latex gloves.

"Should I be worried that your pack," Buffy replied, snapping on the replacement, "has a pocket full of these and Trojans? Maybe I interrupted a secret fun filled week involving body shots and whipped cream."

"Barrier protection." Xander squirted some putty behind a cable-tie stitch. "Botswana is about the stablest and richest country on the continent. Why I picked it for our main base. You go into the nearest village, though, and one-quarter of the people are HIV positive."

"You're kidding." Buffy hissed when Xander shook his head. "That's awful."

"One of the reasons a lot of the girls were so happy to be Called," Xander explained. "Lots of them were infected. Becoming Slayers cured them. Even if slaying still doesn't have the best life span, it's better than AIDS."

"I can't imagine it." Buffy beaded the last stretch of the seam. "All the reports and letters, and I don't think I know what really went on there. Was Africa that rough?"

"It can break your heart coming and going," Xander said quietly. "Poverty? There's areas where Spike's crypt would count as Beverly Hills. Violence? One of my slayers, Donyen. Sweetest little girl from Liberia, thirteen years old. Government troops cut off her left arm at the elbow--with the rest of her village--a year before she was called."

"We have a couple of girls at the palazzo." Buffy wrung her fingers. "We found them in Albania. A Moldovan and a Ukranian. Traffickers had forced them into a brothel before they were called. They didn't even dare run after they became slayers, because the gangsters might have had their families killed."

"You got them out, though, right?"

"The Slayer Code says we can't kill humans." Buffy's teeth flashed. "The rules are, um, a little fuzzier about kneecaps."

"Classic Buffy diplomacy." Xander absently smoothed out another section of putty. "Africa can kick your ass. Just when you're about to scream and go all white pride, there are things that take your breathe away. Not only the land, but the people. They live on what we would call nothing. Yet in the poorest village there's music, and food, and laughter."

"Like Sunnydale." Buffy rested her chin in a palm. "Like being the middle of a big demon Jacuzzi half the time. Other half, watching movie marathons at the Sun or listening to Giles play at the Espresso Pump. LA may have been where I lived for fifteen years. Sunnydale--wow, as bad as it got, it will always be home."

"Those Hellmouth instincts," Xander said, "really came in handy in the field. Although I had to learn a few new rules. Like, 'all traffic yields to technicals. The guy behind the machine gun isn't kidding'."

"But you miss it." Buffy smiled sadly. "Africa."

"If I could--" Xander shrugged. "In a second. But, guess I'm lucky. I have a piece of home with me right now."

It happened in a second. One moment she was there and she was here, really close, he could smell the tang of her sweat and the scent of her hair and the soft press of lips against his cheek. Her body against him in that special Slayer hug that left his ribs pleasantly aching. Then she was back at work as if nothing had happened, though she had this smile that could have lit up the inside of the hull all by itself.

A friendly kiss, Xander thought.

All it was.

Yeah.

+++++

Xander noticed it the third time it happened.

They were working on the dory while the putty fillets in the catboat cured. The fourteen-foot boat was practice for Buffy to learn the stitch-and-glue technique before working on the main project. It was also a way for her to kick the rust off her sailing skills after it was finished. Now they were reinforcing the inside seams with fiberglass tape and epoxy. You had to be careful. Just enough resin to wet the tape down, and running a squeegee down the seam to get out all the air bubbles. He spent a lot of time bent over, concentrating with his single eye on both his side and Buffy's work. Rolling his shoulders, he stretched with arms outflung. 

Buffy glanced up each time he did it.

Huh.

Xander kneaded his shoulders.

Glance, then a head down.

Turning to the side, he arched his back.

Glance. The tip of her tongue flicked over her lips.

"Think you got it, Buff?" he asked.

"Sure," she chirped a little too briskly. "Like varnishing your nails. You have to do it exactly right or it gets all crackly."

"What's terrifying is that I know exactly what you're talking about." Xander shrugged. "You can really get some kinks in these--"

"Fine, I admit it." Buffy blew aside an errant lock of hair escaped from the kerchief . "I've been checking you out. How can't I? What have you been doing, carting around boulders over there?"

"Mini-slayers," he replied. "Seems that my name means 'mobile jungle gym' in most African languages. And, ha, I have you now! Buffy Summers, checking out the Xan Man!"

"We always loved watching you work," Buffy admitted. "Even Tara, who wasn't into the stubbly crowd. Oh, and remember Anya's Male Objectification Fridays? She'd set up lawn chairs outside one of your construction sites and invite us over to oggle your abs."

"And the running commentary about the other guys." Xander laughed. "My boss used to get so pissed until he realized the productivity rate went up."

"I think Dawn has an entire notebook buried in Sunnydale," Buffy said, "full of odes to Xander's sexy shoulders. She used to scribble all the time in it, especially when you came over in The Suit. The Suit was always a big hit."

"Anya definitely loved The Suit. On and off."

"Oh?" Buffy arched one perfectly plucked brow. "Sensing a story here."

"Uh." Xander gulped. "Moving right along..."

"No, I demand the tale be told." She crossed her arms over her chest. "Or else someone gets their back pay mysteriously delayed. Signer of budgets, here."

"Really?" Xander squinted. "You'd do that?"

"Power corrupts," Buffy said brightly. "Absolute power is kinda fun. Spill, minion."

"You asked for it." Oh, it was on. "Now, somehow, Anya learned about the Fabulous Ladies Nightclub. Which, I tell you, catnip to her. Exchange of money and male nudity being the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup flavoring in her world."

"You stripped for her?" Buffy's peaches-and-cream complexion achieved a slight rose tint.

"Got a suit from Goodwill." Xander mock-tugged the lapels of a jacket. "A real Brooks Brothers number, with alterations. One day I know she's angry from customers at the Magic Box screwing up her shelving system. She hated them messing up her stock. So I'm waiting there in The Suit when she stomps into the apartment. Hair slicked back, very 80's Evil Yuppy. And then I give her The Speech."

"The Speech?" Buffy frowned in confusion.

"The point is, ladies and gentleman," Xander intoned, air-unknotting a tie,"that greed, for lack of a better word, is good."

"Wait, I've heard this one," Buffy pondered.

"Greed is right." Tossing the tie over one shoulder, he "shrugged" out of the jacket. "Greed works."

"No." Buffy went from pink to a deepening shade of purple. "That speech?"

"Greed clarifies, cuts through," Xander continued , sexily unbuttoning a non-existent shirt,"and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit."

"That's the--from Gordon Gecko in--" Buffy steadied herself against an unused sawhorse.

"Greed in all its forms," Xander twirled the shirt around a finger before flinging it away, "greed for life, for love, for knowledge has marked the upward surge in mankind."

Buffy couldn't speak She clutched her sides.

"And greed, you mark my words." Big finish now, as if whipping off pants held on only by Velcro along the outside seams. "Greed will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA. And that's when she got a look at the green velveteen thong, with the big gold dollar sign over my--"

Xander smirked as she collapsed to the floor. After a while, she lifted herself up above the side of the half-completed dory. He waited until she had seemingly composed herself before delivering a flamboyant pelvic thrust and grind, fists planted on either hip. It took ten minutes before she got up again. He was about to hit her with a swivel hip when she raised a weak hand for mercy. Catching her breath, Buffy tugged off her kerchief to blow her nose clear.

"Uniforms," she gasped. "Handcuffs. Hatesex with Spike. And I've never heard of anything kinkier than that!"

"Ah, Anya, never satisfied with the feather or the chicken," Xander mused. "She had to go for the entire poultry farm."

"That is so wrong!" A wistful half-smile passed over her features. "So Anya. I always knew you were a romantic, Xan."

"You think that's romantic?" Xander snipped a cable-tie stitching the bow together. "According to our Man About Town in Rome, it's candles and fine wines and oysters with Methos."

"He would challenge you to a duel," Bufffy said, wetting out another section of tape, "for that. He really hates that show. Beau Brummel there is wrong."

"Not all that?" Xander asked.

"Annoying," Buffy said. "Did you know how we met? I'm teaching the girls how to take out a nest of vamps. All of a sudden, he leaps in all D'Artagny in Armani, beheads three vamps, bows, and greets me to his fair city. He totally knew I was there and had been waiting for days to make with the big drama on his entrance."

"What did you do?"

"Kicked him in the shins for screwing up my lesson plan. Mistake." Buffy wiggled her fingers. "Apparently that made me the 'charming and feisty American'. At least he's not evil."

"Dawn says he is."

"No more than the usual for my boyfriends," she said. "The Immortal is... Oh, he can be fun. Very Rico Suave, very continental, with the Alfa Romeo roadster and the villa full of art stolen back from the Nazis and the yacht in Napoli. Way fun clubbing around Roma. Fun until the bedroom door, where it stops. Kinda like the Twinkie of relationships."

"Aht!" Xander raised a finger in stern admonishment. "I will not have the noble Twinkie dissed. The Twinkie is the perfect blend of spongy cakeness and creamy filling within."

"Fine," Buffy relented. "The Immortal is like those cakes. The ones you see under glass at diners, like the one where I worked that lost summer. It looks all yummy with the vanilla frosting and the coconut and the sprinkles. Only when you buy a piece, the frosting's all that's there. Underneath is cake. It's okay cake, but you feel empty inside after you pay up."

"Big lead up, little show." Xander filled up the small holes in the bow with putty. "No bouncy-bouncy for Buffy?"

"Another Byron Boy with a mysterious past?" Buffy shuddered. "No. It's light and casual, and political. The Immortal might be Don Juan in the bedroom, according to reputation, but he's Don Corleone of the Roman supernatural underworld. He gets to be seen with the Slayer as his girl toy. I get his protection. Keeps me, Dawn, and the girls in the palazzo safe.

"Also, I think the Immortal is having to much fun fucking Andrew up the ass."

"AWK!" Xander stumbled back. "What? How?"

"I walked in on them." Buffy smirked. "The Immortal was real Mr. Casual. He'd even set up a small hors d'oeuvres table so I could watch if I wanted."

"My eye." Xander slapped a hand over his non-empty socket. "My poor, burning eye!"

"It was actually kinda hot." Buffy's grin became positively lewd. "I can see why Dawn got so into those drawings, the ones with--"

"I hate you with the fury of a thousand suns." Xander paused. "Damn. It just came to me. Out of the three of us, Andrew is the one getting any action."

"We're sad, pathetic people," Buffy said. 

"Oh yeah." Xander chuckled. "But, now, we can be pathetic together."

"That's my Xander." Buffy beamed. "Always looking on the bright side of life."


	5. Chapter 5

Sleeping with one eye open could be exhausting when you only had the one. Twenty odd years on the Hellmouth and two in Africa had proven that you did it anyway. The song lied. The lion didn't always sleep tonight. Neither did demons, vampires, Congolese guerrillas, or that penis-stealing thing that had nearly given him a free trip to Johns-Hopkins. When he heard a female groan, the sound of a girl in potential distress brought him from deep sleep to whereisitwhereisit in under a second. He grabbed the panga hanging from the side of his cot. Machetes were the Little Black Dress for African Slayers. Cheap, so common that even a young girl would have it, and could chop any number of demons in half if you put enough English behind it. Even though Progreso seemed demon-free, he had bought one locally out of habit.

He quickly categorized direction and threat level. Direction: Buffy's room. Threat level--

Xander shifted uncomfortably when he realized it was a moan. A particular type at that. Elvis was clearly back in the building. Grabbing his pillow, he clamped it over his ears. Wonderful. Just like the times when he could hear his parents doing IT. With the giggling and the grunting and then the angry shouting over how was he supposed to keep it up after a hard day and how she thought a mosquito would be bigger and argh argh argh. By then he had been already out of the window into the yard, sleeping bag in hand. At least with Buffy doing the dream-tango with her skaterboy, there wasn't the awful association of his dad's worn boxer shorts--seen when the old man was scratching himself in front of the TV--and bedroom fun.

A pause. Xander stiffened. In a variety of ways. His hand tightened on the handle of the panga. Oh. He knew that little catch of breath. Very distinctive. He had done it himself when locking himself in the upstairs bathroom for epic sessions of flogging the bonobo. Staring down at that cheap mustard-coloured linoleum, replaying the latest Buffy outfit escapade or the holy grail of catching a panty flash while watching cheerleader practice. Holding back his breath in sharp pants, just like Buffy right now, hoping his mom or dad wouldn't hear. The threat of being caught somehow making it all the hotter. He wondered if she was staring at the door right now. Wondering if he could hear her. Slayers had excellent hearing, as he well knew. Did she sense he was awake? Was she doing it anyway, holding back, the naughty little minx?

His right hand drifted from the panga downward.

The audio always got to him. Not to say the video was irrelevant. The picture was very important to everything. Sound, though, was what really mattered. Maybe it was from those make-out sessions with Cordelia in the closet, his first time he had been up close and personal with a girl who only theoretically wanted to kill him. Larry had spent less time in the closet than them. It had been NASCAR sex on the short track: bumping and rubbing and screeching. Intense moments caught between periods or after class, fumbling in the dark. Every breath and grunt magnified in the tiny space. Hands always Above The Waist and Panties On. Cordy had had definite standards. Not that it mattered when she had locked those slim legs around his waist and ground back. Cursing too, like a cross between George Carlin and the 1st Marine Division from that prim mouth. I can't believe I'm dating a bleeping loser like you and get your bleeping hands on my bleeps and faster bleeping faster.

Willow had been different. Softer where Cordy had been all tightness and muscle. Gentler. Soft sighs and needy pleas, her Willowy body molding to him in stolen moments in the stacks of the library. Xander oh please been so long I've waited. Looking into her wide loving green eyes while she mouthed her love to him. In their own private world of touch and whispers and the taste of her lips beneath his. In the other room, Buffy's gasps had quickened. Was she a dipper like Willow? Willow had liked it when he slipped underneath the snap of her jeans. Never in. Just a slow walk around the rim of the canyon through thin white cotton. Willow's cries muffled against his shoulder as she hugged him close. 

Anya. God. The soundtrack to the Anya and Xander porno DVD had been Dolby with stereophonic sound. Getting used to the commentary track had taken getting used to. Unless gags were involved, which to tell the truth had been the few times in her life Anya was quiet. He had honestly preferred the speakers up loud. Telling him that was okay and really, this needed a little work, and yes this was good very good Xander more more! If he didn't get it right the first time, Anya was happy to access the many many tutorials in the extras menu. He could see her right now, lying back in bed. Showing him exactly where touching here and there and right...there. When he was good, the audio track even skipped over to the Old Norse for a while. Her excited chatter when he copied her. Her enthusiasm when it was just right. Those precious moments when she finally lost the words.

Buffy's breath hitched once and

Cordy's fingernails under his shirt left red claw marks he would have to explain as demonic at next night's patrol and

Buffy's moan became a wail and

Willow arched against him, that cute little hiccup of hers telling he had hit her special spot and

Buffy cried out, he could imagine her right now, heels digging into the mattress and

her heels dug into the mattress, Anya screamed she loved him and

So good, he couldn't hold back--

Xander jacknifed upright when the Star Trek red alert klaxon from the two laptops on the kitchen counter. The thin sheet covering him dropped away from his naked body; years of African heat and the humid Yucatan climate made sleeping commando second-nature. He swayed with his left hand awkwardly waving around the panga. His right hand was a little too slippery at the moment for a good grip. On the machete. Not the other thing. The door to the bedroom ripped off its hinges as Buffy burst out. She skidded to stop at the sight of her friend dual-wielding in the altogether. Oh, crap. This was almost exactly like the time with the Fyarls and the nuns in Ghana. Only the sisters hadn't worn a tight baby-blue Kim Possible T shirt and. And. Xander's brain skittered to stop when he saw the shredded remains of a matching set of panties around Buffy's knees.

He couldn't resist. He glanced up.

Wow. He won the Great Bet. Natural blonde, after all.

Buffy shrieked, yanking down the hem of her T-shirt. Xander's keen mind honed by countless crises sprang into motion. Step One: naked in front of Buffy naked in front of Buffy. No! Step One: Pants! No, Step One: put down panga. Step Two: let go of Privates Harris. Substep: co-ordinate both steps without becoming Stumpy. Step Three: Pants! Step Four: Wash hand. Step Five, unknown. Followed by Step Six: Profit. Wait. Forget that. Pants! Also, kill Andrew for making that sound the ChosenNet emergency signal. Diving for his pack, Xander yanked out a pair of cargos. Stumbling over to the counter, he dressed on the fly wth the skill of one who has had to vacate the premises bare-assed on more than one occasion. Buffy came back in with a towel around her waist, a murderous expression in her eye, and wobbly knees.

"What?" they screamed as they opened their portables in unison.

"Dear Lord," Rupert Giles said, the video window showing the paneled walls of his office at the Watchtower, "I am so glad you-- Are you alright? You both appear, ah, flushed."

"Prickly heat," Xander snapped.

"Girl interrupted, here," Buffy said. "I mean, from sleep. Deep, calming sleep. I just came-- I mean, I just came awake. From resting."

"I see." Giles lowered his glasses a touch. "Terribly sorry to, ah, wake the two of you, but we've had a nasty surprise. It is about Katrina."

"The Slayer on the Odessa patrol?" Buffy asked.

"No, that would be Katerina," Giles explained. "I am speaking of the hurricane."

"You got me up for a weather report?" Buffy snarled.

"No." A satellite image came on the screen, of a vast whirling cloud band over the Gulf of Mexico.

"Crap!" Xander cursed. They had been deliberately ignoring the news, relying on ChosenNet to alert them to situations they might face. 

"It has progressed to a possible Category Five," Giles said, "when making landfall near New Orleans. Terribly sorry about failing to note the implications, Buffy. We are so focused on predicting the next apocalypse that the mundane slips past."

"Not good," Xander said, flipping through the predictions on the virtual whiteboard. "Really not good. I've seen conditions like this in a lot of countries over there. You get the chaos and the breakdown, and vamps and demons move in. Natural disasters mean a big human buffet table to anything that likes to munch on us."

"The North American Council is preparing as we speak," Giles reassured them. "The New Orleans Patrol will most likely be safe. It is on high ground in the French Quarter. However, we are co-ordinating at a higher level with Colonel Ellis of GLADIUS."

"My Slayers can help," Xander insisted. "We're dealing with sitches in the Congo and Uganda with what might happen there."

"I'll coach Vi through this," Buffy insisted. "Not first time she's faced something apocalypsy, but this is the first major operation for her since she was elected as Council speaker."

"Excellent." Giles polished his glasses with a silk cloth. "Shall we reconvene at say, seven your time, Buffy? I assume you will have caught up on your sleep by then."

"Sure!" she piped, a crimson spot on either cheek. "Rested! And ready. Totally ready!"

The video window blipped out.

"Think he noticed?" Buffy ventured. 

"Him?" Xander's head stayed still, with her invisible in his blind spot. "Head of the Watcher intelligence unit? Known you for years? Pretty sure that just sailed right over his head."

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Xander went for yet another cold shower while Buffy slammed her brow repeatedly onto the edge of the counter.


	6. Chapter 6

When asked how he learned to manage a continent-wide network of demon-fighting warrior women, Xander usually said it was all about the doughnuts. Riley had once said "amateurs study tactics, professionals study strategy, masters study logistics". Xander preferred the doughtnut explanation. You learned a lot being the designated runner to Mister Donut for tasty treats. It wasn't just grabbing a random box. A full Scooby meeting had required an entirely different selection than a Willow hack-and-research night. Giles needed a cruller to nibble on between tea biscuits. Willow snacked on cake doughnuts, minimal oil and glaze to not muck up her computer or books. Buffy was all about the sprinkles, icing, jelly-filled and powdered sugar. The exact combination had varied according to mood, whether there was a fight coming up, and who was counting calories that week. Not to mention to the delicate political question of splitting the bill, since then Watchers Council funds did not cover snack expenses out of pocket. Organizing the African Council was simple compared to that.

The living room was transformed into their makeshift command center. A white tarp hung on one wall acted as a screen for the video projector attached to Buffy's laptop. Windows streamed information from the patrols dealing with the aftermath of Katrina. Images of the chaos in the Superdome, where Rona's team had been choppered in to fend off a small horde of vampires, flickered across another window. Adaeze and the rest of the African contingent reported in the results of their sweep through the flooded streets of the Big Over Easy in Zodiacs and Klepper kayaks. Xander monitored them, but concentrated on the background tasks. Somehow, the Slayers in the disaster area had to get the essentials: weapons, food, lipgloss, their favorite stuffed unicorn they had left behind in the Memphis Patrol house. Relief flights by the Order of the Scythe's small fleet of helicopters and planes had to be negotiated through the military and NGO traffic. All things that Robin Wood and Vi had never had experience dealing with, lacking Xander's hard-earned expertise in supplying hunting patrols out in the bush.

Through a haze of Red Bull and Twinkie rush, Xander sensed Buffy on the other side of the room. Distance. Lots of distance. That was important, because otherwise there might be contact and the awkwardness and Buffy was nicely groomed wasn't she and bad thoughts. He kneaded his temples. Wonderful. Great. Some sabbatical.

He darted a quick glance at Buffy by the kitchen counter. Very professional in the business suit she had worn when they had first met. Her back was to him while she consulted with Lieutenant-Colonel Ellis and Giles. General Buffy had returned. Not as snippy or overbearing as those last days at Revello Drive. The armor was there though. He had his place and she had hers. That was the way it had to be. Better all around. Maybe later he could sneak into the workshop for an hour and work on the boat. Alone. She had been a little too occupied to join him since. Well. Then.

Dammit. Xander's lost eye pulsed in phantom pain. The CNN crawl had come one again. Naturally, it was about recent American disasters. They always used Sunnydale at least once. That overflight shot three days after the collapse, when people actually noticed the huge sinkhole two hours north of LA. Xander could handle the shots of New Orleans after Katrina. Destroyed houses and flooded streets, yeah, sucks. He had seen much worse in a dozen spots across Africa. The crater had been his home. Somewhere down there were his Babylon 5 plates. The house on Revello Drive that now no amount of fixing windows would repair. In the center-- On long, long nights Xander wondered if Anya had actually been dead when the Hellmouth had choked on itself. She might have been alive enough to feel the ground shake. To feel fear for however many seconds before the rubble crushed her. 

"Ever want to set fire to the History Channel?" Buffy said. The footage panned dizzily down into the sinkhole. "Or Fox? Gangs on PCP, seven...oh, was it eight, or nine? apocalypses, and it never got reported. Now, ooo, sinkhole, how telegenic. They run this every damn time."

"Maybe they got tired of tanks getting high-centered," Xander replied. 

"I saw. It." Buffy fidgeted. "I didn't pay attention when I re-booked my flight to Mexico. Coastal run down to San Diego. The pilot was really helpful pointing out Lake Wilkins. Guess who booked a window seat? I got charged extra for the broken arm-rest."

"I presleyed a few TV's with the crossbow," he admitted. "Giles kept sending me testy notes about that on my expense reports."

"Before I went to Japan," Buffy continued, "I had a layover in LA. I couldn't be there right after it happened. I was there though, hobbing the nob with Mr. Nabbitt. He took me down to the Hyperion. No sign of what happened aside from a few scorch marks."

"Does anyone know what really happened?" Xander asked.

"No. Lots of the strange." Buffy watched the footage of the eclipse and Jasmine Cult riots now on the channel. "Totally dead spiritually, some parts of the hotel carbon date to fifty thousand years old. Whatever happened there was major."

"Figures. Angel was such a drama queen," Xander joked. "We faced off against a uber-vamp horde, but no. Broodman and his boy wonder Peroxide Lad had to top that by somehow knocking out Wolfram and Hart's Senior Partners."

"Don't." Buffy's voice sharpened. "We left them out there without any--"

"We all agreed," Xander said. "Angel walked in there, eyes open. No way were we going risk letting his bosses getting their claws into the girls."

"I know." Buffy smiled ruefully. "And you're right. Angel was great with the big exits. Kinda his specialty. I think he and Spike got coats just so they could do the whoosh-flap move."

"I have to say, it was a good one," Xander relented.

"Final, maybe." Sunnydale was on again. Buffy traced a finger over the monitor, over what had once been her home. "I miss my mom. I miss my friends. I miss my bed and the way the light would come through the window, through the tree outside. I'll be in the salle of the palazzo, watching my girls practice. It's amazing and wonderful. And then I think back, and my heart goes crack."

Xander reached out. 

Buffy flinched away.

"It wasn't supposed to be this way!" she wailed. "There were supposed to be you, and me, and margaritas, and splashing each other in the surf, a-and those Xander hugs. Now it's all so complicated. There's a vibe."

"So--" Xander swallowed heavily. "Not just a tingle?"

"Think Hitachi." Buffy slapped her hands over her face. "The entire Good Vibrations catalog."

"Oh." Xander considered. "Buffy, could I ask you something?"

"What?" she whimpered through spread fingers.

"Would you go to spring fling with me?"

"Xan, I-- I think of you as a--." Buffy frowned. "Hold it."

"I thought I'd complete the awkward," Xander pointed out. "If we're doing this again, I might as well go the full sexual-frustration experience. You can use me as a stripper pole for extra bonus points."

"And that's the problem!" Buffy flailed about, hair coming undone from its clip. "Just like Spike. I'm all lonely again and you're there and I know there's the yen. I'd just be using you. And I like the way you've been watching me watching you watching me watching-- Omigod. My life is an ABBA song. Could this get any worse?"

Xander kissed her.

After what seemed an eternity of softness and cinnamon-flavored lipstick, he pulled back. 

Buffy hung from him, arms tight around his neck, hazel eyes wide with shock. 

"I find your lips and mine very compatible," he said, dipping back in to demonstrate. "Your form is exceptionally pleasing, and I anticipate that we would interlock together in a very energetic fashion."

"But--but!" she babbled. "You and me and you're still and--"

"Now, traditionally," Xander continued, his hand trailing down her back in a way that had her pressing against him in a really distracting way, "I would have done that by getting naked before the kiss and the speech. Only we got that out of the way. Oh. And the fabric softener. "

"Fabric softener?" Buffy gasped. "What do you do with that?"

"Uh." Xander shook his head. "Not important."

"What do you want me to do?" Buffy said. "You can't just--"

"Dammit, Buff, do whatever you do when a guy is in your life," Xander snapped. "Kiss me or kill me. I'll die happy either way!"

Buffy obviously had not lost her skill at snap decisions under crisis. They spent a very long time not dying. At least, the big death.

"Air," Xander gasped.

"Air good. Xander pretty." Buffy shook her head. "Um. Thinking fuzzy. Kiss me again?"

"Maybe a little more private." He jerked his head at the camera lenses on the laptops. 

"Yes," said Giles, from the open video window. "That may be a good idea. It may also be wise to alter the priority settings so I could not start a conference on my own initiative."

"This is not--" Buffy rolled her eyes. "Okay, it is."

"There a problem, G?" Xander asked, arms still about the petite slayer.

"I do so hate it when you call me that." Giles smiled. "As I told you before, it is 'Rupert'."

"Won't work." Xander couldn't help a silly grin as Buffy tried--not too hard--to edge away while he bantered. "You're spy guy now. Bond has M. We have G."

"A curse I shall, no doubt, have to bear with." Giles rustled papers out of view. "As I was about to say, matters seem to be at hand. In fact, I would have advised the two of you to have a few hours off duty. You seem to have anticipated me nicely, it seems."

"A-re you sure?" Buffy stammered. "Because there's the blocking patrols to set up, and Colonel Ellis might need me to--"

"Dear Lord, woman, he's been mooning about you forever!" Giles barked, massaging the bridge of his nose. "I've watched the two of you on tenterhooks around each other for four days. You're in a bloody Caribbean paradise, the lad is more than willing. Have at him!"

"This can't be happening," Buffy said, slack-jawed, in the silence after Giles signed off. "My Watcher pimped me out."

"Well, you heard the man." Xander kissed her again. "So. Beach?"

"Mmmmmph." Buffy finally sprang back. "Beach. Yes, you don't go anywhere!"

++++

Buffy dashed into her room at breakneck speed. The unmistakable sound of rapid fashion choices ensued. Xander changed in the bathroom into the first beach-worthy clothes he could find in his pack. Board shorts and the Ron Stoppable t-shirt Dawn had sent him for Christmas. All of the Scoobies had gotten one. Faith reportedly wore her Shego every time she could. Xander's knees buckled when Buffy skipped out with a towel over one shoulder and sunglasses on. Blouse knotted at her midriff. Blue bikini top visible through the open lapels. Whether or not the bottoms were on underneath the cut-off jean shorts was up for debate. Possibly exploration. Her sly smile indicated that she understood exactly the effect she was having.

Wheeling out the bicycle, Xander patted the rear rack. She hopped on it side-saddle, ankles crossed. He felt her soft cheek against his back when she wrapped arms about his waist for support. Swallowing heavily, he pedaled down the back streets to the white sands on the other side of the melancon. Buffy hopped over the low sea wall, claiming a space beneath a palm tree. Lying down on her stomach, she slipped her blouse off her shoulders. The arch of vetebrae and the expanse of lightly-tanned skin unmarred by a single freckle or mole nearly undid him right there and then. She fished out a thick book and a bottle of suntan lotion. She waved him forward in a mockingly imperious gesture.

Right. Barrier protection. Wouldn't want the famous Summers peaches-and-cream getting sunburned. Kneeling by her side, he squeezed a pool of tanning lotion into his palm. A brief wiggle of her hips sent an arc of lotion spurting over the sands. Focus, Harris. His hands settled on her shoulders. Buffy groaned when his fingertips discovered the lines of tense muscle. That tension in the room for the past four days had not been all metaphory. Out of instinct, his fingers gently stabbed into the worst of the knots bunching up beneath her skin. Buffy flopped down, toes curling, while he kneaded away. Not rough. You had to get your fingers and thumb around the knot, maybe there would be some pain as you carefully worked it-- Ah. There. 

Xander had always been good at back rubs. Just the way he had been at everything that needed precise, repetitive hand motion: swinging a hammer, chopping with an axe, hitting Anya's G spot. A back rub could be the only thing that made life any better. Those early Saturday morning sessions with Jessica, his mom so sad and miserable after yet another drunken argument with Tony, making him sit behind her on the couch. Ten years old, doing as best he could to comfort his mom. He had massaged Tara while she babbled madly, one of the few things that had calmed her down. Joyce, too, when the pain from her tumour had gotten worse than even she would admit to her daughters. Willow sobbing against him on Kingman's Bluff, his hands stroking her neck there there there, it would be alright.

"I missed this sooooo much," Buffy whispered. "I should have chained you down in the palazzo, next to my bed. You have no idea how tensy I can get after practice."

"A slave?" Xander worked down her back. "With a leather collar and, say, Speedo?"

"Ha-ahhhhh!" Buffy spasmed when a stubborn knot unwound under his persistent touch. "Definitely Speedo. Or a little leather thong! Right there right--Ahhhhhh."

"Happy ending." Xander kissed a spot on her shoulder blade. "Although you gave yourself one of those without my help."

"Oh, you helped, Mr. Curves To The Left." Buffy slipped her sunglasses down her nose, an oddly Giles-ish gesture under the circumstances. "Confession? I used to watch you with Dawn at breakfast, that summer you moved in after Willow went to the Devon Coven. You'd be there all in your suit--and we have to get you a new one, buster--or your flannels and jeans. Helping Dawn with her summer-school work, cleaning up the dishes. I'd sit there with my coffee and think 'so that's why Anya wanted to marry this man'."

"Worst thing I ever did was doubt her." His thumbs worked in circles along either side of her spine at the nape of her neck. "She believed in the both of us."

"She would have been proud of you," Buffy sighed. She rested her chin on crossed arms.

"So would your mom, Buff." He picked up the book, a thick tome titled _Modern Social Work_. "Making with the knowledge?"

"Distance learning through the Cal State system," Buffy said. She opened it to a bookmarked page. "Started last year. I went for the online courses because, you know, busy busy. Also, less chance of any campus I'm on ending up over-run by a demon horde or hit by a meteor."

"Most of my studying has been Army field manuals," he replied. Buffy squirmed while he slowly massaged down her back. "Oh, and that picture Kennedy sent me of her and Willow on the beach in Rio. Freckles and tans and not much else. May I say, saving exhibitionist lesbians from crazy killer preachers has unexpected bennies."

"Hey, girl here," Buffy insisted "Concentrate or there will be smiting."

"Yes, my queen." Xander's hands hovered over the taut stretch of denim below her back. They glided over to the backs of her thighs.

"Mmmmmmmmmm." Buffy purred. "Xan, uh..oooooh....can...can I be...Anne?"

"Whatchya mean?" he asked, kneading her calves.

"That--while we were--speech--coherency--losing--" Buffy panted. "When I heard you, and you were so hot, and I couldn't stop, and when I came you said...ahhh....her name, and for a minute I thought it was 'Anne' a-and it felt so good thinking that you loved me like that--"

"I've always loved you," he said quietly. "Through Cordelia and Willow and even Ahn, you've always been my Buffster. It's been Xander-shaped friend love, yeah. A guy takes what his hero will give. If there's more--"

"There's. More." Buffy reached behind to stroke a leg. "There's so much more. But it--it might go wrong. Like with Angel, or Spike, or Riley."

"Not like Spike," Xander said. "If you think Id put up with the crap you put him through, you are way mistaken."

"You always could put me in my place." Buffy's eyes rolled back in her head when he started on the soles of her feet. "A very good place. Just--what if it goes wrong? I never want to lose you."

"Think you can get me out of your life?" Xander dipped down to kiss the side of her neck, where four tiny round scars clustered. "Seen you at your worst, seen you at your best. Seen you stupid and smart and everything in between. You ran away to LA, went catatonic, jumped off a tower and into heaven. And I waited for you, every damn time, to come back. You'll have to chop me out of your life with the Scythe before I'd leave you alone."

"Brought me back to the light." Buffy shifted up. They ended up with his back against the palm tree, a petite blonde in his lap with her golden hair spilling over his shoulder. "After the Master. When Riley left. Angel caught my passion, Spike saw the dark. But even when I was bitchy or sad or feeling like the worst thing ever...you always tried to bring me back to the light."

"Where you belong." Xander held her close, arms about her waist. "Buffy, I just gotta ask you one thing."

"What?" Buffy closed her eyes, features bathed in the glow of the setting sun. "Anything."

"For the love of Yahweh," Xander said, "if you have to scream another guy's name, please please let it be Riley."


	7. Chapter 7

Xander fidgeted in the pew as Buffy lit candles for the dead. He had never been comfortable in churches. Oh, the cathedral of Merida was a wonder. Plain stone on the outside, the interior was a great space of light and air contained in walls of white stone. Pillars flanking the nave supported ceilings that arched high overhead. The dome crowning the transept before the altar let in a flood of sunlight. Certainly nicer than the dowdy Episcopalian church back home. Still, he did not feel much connection to any higher power. Grand basilica or small-town church, it was all the same to him.

The Harris family rarely got their god on beyond Christmas or Easter. Attendance at the near-certain funeral of the month had usually been confined to the graveside service, unless it was family or one of dad's bosses. Services were a slow hell of starched collars, ill-fitting suits, and the inevitable stage whisper of his parents' argument. Maybe the glug of Uncle Rory sneaking some liquid courage from his hip flask. After Buffy came, churches were a strictly professional thing. Places to snag holy water from the fount or grab a free cross.

What faith he had came from Willow. Early on, he had realized that the weekly Shabbes dinner at the Rosenbergs beat out his mother's call to Cho's House of Delight. Ira Rosenberg may have put up with Sheila's insistence on low carb and organic diets all other days of the week. On Friday nights, though, the foot came down in favour of heart-attack-on-a-plate brisket, challah, and knishes. Inviting himself to dinner had been a well-honed survival instinct. Religion there had been Willow in a lace headpiece, her red hair set afire from the light of the candles. Sheila beaming with pride behind her daughter's perfect Hebrew pronunciation. The usually distant Ira's voice ringing out as he said the grace over the wine and the bread. A ceremony of prayer and food and maybe not a perfect family, but a happier one than he had ever known.

From there it had been a quick decision to let "The Shaighetz" tag along to the Conservative temple. More starched collars and suits, but at least Sheila and Ira had seemed happy enough to be there. Willow had provided the play-by-play translation of the prayers. By their twelfth year he had understood enough to be Willow's study buddy in her frantic preparations for her bat mitzvah. Her terror of messing up the ceremony in front of Ira had meant practice sessions only slightly less intense than Operation Overlord. Ira had actually stationed him in front of the bima so that Willow wouldn't faint while singing the parsha.

Small, simple gestures. Pebbles on gravestones. Buffy whispered a name each time she lit a votive candle at the side altar. He didn't have to hear them to know which ones. He could list them by heart: Jesse, Jenny, Joyce, Tara, Anya. The Potentials: Chloe, Annabelle, Molly, and all the others. She would have added Angel and Spike, and out of respect for once he included them too. The candles in the church were almost like the yahrtzeit candles the Rosenbergs had lit each Yom Kippur. Yitgadol yitgadash schmei rabah, brichu. The mourner's kaddish Willow had explained that first High Holiday service. They had said it side by side so many times in Sunnydale. Over Jesse's grave, over Joyce's, over Buffy's. Over so many of their friends and fellow students at Sunnydale High. Those horrible days after Tara had been buried, Willow blank-faced in a house of covered mirrors. Even Sheila had been silent about it "only being a phase" as her daughter sat shiva for her dead lover. Ira and Xander had supported her as they recited the kaddish.

Slipping a few hundred pesos into the donation box, Buffy wove her way between the pews to him. A simple change to a flowing ankle-length skirt and a cotton shawl over shoulders bared by her halter-tie top made her respectable for Mass. She took his hand when the priest entered. Like Willow, doing the same when Ira wasn't looking. You know, the cathedral wasn't totally impersonal. He loved wood, but stone had its own flow and balance. He could see how the vaulted ceilings could remind a worshipper of heaven. Buffy's hair blazed white-gold in the light falling from above, a sign that somewhere a Higher Power had bigger ambitions than watching the Alexander Harris Buttmonkey Hour. She nestled against him as the priest said Mass. Not too different than the ones from the Book of Common Prayer. Different notes, same tune. Xander absently listened to the Gloria and Kyrie, an arm about Buffy, while he grooved on the really amazing work the builders had put into the cathedral.

"Trying on the wimple again for size?" he said. "The only church that you used to pray in was Neiman-Marcus."

"When the Pope asks you if you want to have a Mass," Buffy said, "with him and the College of Cardinals in the Sistine Chapel, you go. After a few times I got to like it. They put on a good show."

"If you're thinking of going the whole way," Xander offered, "you can always join up with us Episcopalians. All the spectacle, quarter of the guilt. Kinda the Slimfast Plan."

"That would be a no." Buffy adjusted the shawl. "Following what a bunch of old guys says is the truth? Had enough of that to not want to catch it in re-runs."

"I get it." Xander sprawled out in his seat, the better to catch a draft from a fan by a nearby pillar. "Also handy when you want to repent your sins. Like gluttony. Which number was that again?"

"I only had five margaritas!" Buffy hunched down when several parishioners glared at her for the outburst.

"Five pitchers of margaritas," Xander corrected. "Actually, it was six. The last one you poured over me to 'lick off all that salty goodness'. That's about the time they chucked us out of the club."

"Tequila is evil," Buffy groused. "It sounds like such a happy, fun drink. 'Sunrise'. Now there's a little hellgod in my head smacking the inside of my skull with a troll hammer. Did I say I'm sorry? Our first night together together, and you end up carrying me home over your shoulder."

"But you're a perky drunk, Buff," Xander pointed out. "And not all the romance went out of the evening. There wasn't a dry eye in the house after you climbed up on the table and belted out 'Holding Out For A Hero'."

"The one time I'd pray spontaneous human combustion--" Buffy tilted back her head, beseeching heaven.

"It was touching." Xander placed a hand over his heart. "What man wouldn't melt, especially when you did the fist pumps."

"Oh Lord forgive me, for I knew not what I did." Buffy smiled shyly. She sang, in a low contralto. "'Isn't there a white knight upon a fiery steed/Late at night I toss and turn and dream of what I need.' "

"More of a squire," Xander said, tugging the collar of his shirt. "Holding your charger, polishing your shield, bashing out the dents in your armor."

"I don't need to wonder where all the good men have gone." Buffy linked her arm with his. "Got one right here with me. So, were there any other musical interludes?"

"Well, you may have dipped into The Bangles back catalog."

"Oh no." Buffy cringed. "'Eternal Flame'?"

"On your knees on the table." Xander hooked his ankle with hers. "With a candle cupped in your hands. You had most of the bar waving lighters in the air."

"Where's Lethe's Bramble when you need it?"

Xander waited by the doors when Buffy stepped forward to accept Communion. She took just the barest sip of the sacramental wine. Smart--hair of the dog never worked. For himself, there was no way he was getting close to the priest. At a distance, his black clothes covered by a surplice, he was bearable. Close enough to touch Xander's face, with the reek of wine close by? Hell no. Xander breathed a lot easier after they stepped outside.

They called Merida the White City. Sunlight shone down on the cream-and-gray limestone buildings surrounding the Plaza de Mayor. All around the great town square were shops and restaurants. A crowd of Meridans sprinkled with a few tourists milled about the streets flanking the Plaza. A little hustle, a little bustle, but mostly people out and about. A man at a news stand window bought a single cigarette from a jar and lit it with a lighter chained to the counter top. Even after a couple years overseas, his SoCal instincts made him gape a bit at that. Spike would have fallen in love with the city for that alone.

He had always wondered what being Buffy's-- What was he? Boyfriend? Lover? Friend with major privileges? What it would be like, being with her as her one-and-only. He expected the usual: awkwardness, a faint burning sensation, dizziness. The old love fever. It was none of that. They ambled together through the crowd as if heading down to the Sun or the Espresso Pump. Close and comfortable with each other. If he looked to his left he almost expected to see Dawn and Willow on his other side. Buffy flitted about in a touristy version of her mall-wanderer mode, familiar from countless shopping trips where he acted as shopping sherpa. Going from store to store, taking a picture here and there with a camera produced from her purse, reading the menus posted by the restaurants. Sales mode was a lot less mellow. It combined the focus Luke homing in on the exhaust port and the subtle use of elbows on rival shoppers. Really, being this way with Buffy was the most natural thing in the world.

Aside from the compulsion to buy a sombrero, throw it on the ground, and Snoopy Dance around it.

Crossing the street, they passed through the border of trees surrounding the Plaza. Within, broad paths bordered by grass and bushes stretched out across the square. Several colourful statues had been placed here and there. Some kind of temporary public exhibit, maybe. The crowd here was mostly young people and families, taking a break. Backing up a few feet, Buffy snapped a picture of the Cathedral's towers rising above the branches. Willow had compulsively taken pictures on family trips. Not that he had ever tagged along on those. Dad had always found reasons to keep his son home during the summers the Rosenbergs left town. Usually for the important task of fetching his beer and yelling at him to mow the lawn, you lazy shit. Willow's weekly package of photos--blurry from nervousness--were had been his only way of escaping Sunnydale.

They were usually of Important Cultural and Historical Sites which Sheila Felt Should Be Documented For Their Educational Value. One, though, had been clear. The Rosenbergs at Disneyland. Willow out of frame. You got the idea she had taken the photo on the sly. Sheila caught with her mouth silently mouthing an indignant lecture at a terrified Cinderalla for daring to tell Willow that she might be a princess one day. The nerve, spreading such patriarchal garbage at impressionable little girls. Sheila was a little like Tony, although she dominated the space around her with Correct Opinions rather than a fog of semi-drunken resentment and anger. Beside her, a balding Ira Rosenberg with a kippah over his receding red hair. Usually a quiet man who staked out his own small space in their marriage with obliging silence and tactical retreat to his study. Here, he had looked his wife with an expression hovering between amusement and amazement. Can you believe it, I'm married to this meshugennah yenta? Isn't life crazy? Isn't life fine?

"Wanna sit down?" Buffy asked.

"Think I'm okay," Xander said.

"You sure?" Buffy led him to a traditional park bench: two stone seats like low backed swivel chairs facing one another, their left rests fused together. "Because the last time I saw someone this blissed out was Snyder high on band candy."

"I have a new drug," Xander crooned. He kissed her quick. "Needed another toke. You know, have you ever really, really looked at the back of your hands?"

"First taste is free, it's the other ones that cost." Buffy contemplated the bench. "Why did they carve these like this?"

"To stop unmarried couples from sitting side by side, " Xander said, "in the colonial days. Because, wow, that might mean indecent closeness and cats and dogs lying down together. Or even Giles doing the Macarena."

"Sensing a flaw in the design, here." Buffy darted in for another smooch-fest. "I can think of several things to do from this position."

"Why, Miss Summers!' Xander swept his hand at the surrounding crowd. "Indecency! Think about the children."

"We can pass out blindfolds." Buffy gazed over his shoulder at a passing couple, their son riding on the father's shoulders. "I'm about the age Mom was when she had me."

"Same here," Xander said.

"There are times when I think--" Buffy smirked. "Your kinda girlfriend is talking about clocks ticking. Why aren't you over the horizon?"

"I was, with Anya." Xander scratched around his eyepath. "Part of the doubts. She wanted the full Fifties slash Supermom experience: 2.5 kids, car in the driveway, cooking pancakes naked in heels and pearls. I even saw them in the visions. Daughter and son."

"What were they like?" Buffy asked.

"Daughter had big ears. Clem ears." Xander tugged his earlobes down. "Son was an emo whiner. Total disaster."

"You would have been a great dad!" Buffy took hold of his wrist. "You're not Tony. You're the cool guy every Slayer from Algiers to Cape Town thinks is her awesome Uncle Xanny."

"Uncle Rory is still cooler." Xander jerked at his collar, tight once again. "Alcoholic but with an awesome car. Car still beats out eyepatch."

"Nuh-uh." Buffy's sandaled foot stroked the back of his calf. "Tell me. If I were..Anne. How would you marry me?"

"Uh." Xander swallowed against a suddenly narrow throat. "Maybe. Chuppah. Down by the beach, cloth set up on spears because, hey, Slayer getting hitched. Under the palm tree there. I would be in the snazziest guayabera, since there is no power on Earth that will put me into a cummerbund and tux again."

"Those shirts?" Buffy arched a brow. "They have more pleats than my old cheerleading skirt."

"It's that or my best Hawaiian shirt," he said. "It has orchids and surfboards."

"Guayabera!" Buffy said. "What would I wear?"

"The dress you wore to prom after kicking the Master's ass."

"Very fashion forward." Buffy tapped her chin. "Recessional."

"Mariachi band playing 'Wind Beneath My Wings'."

"Not!" Buffy considered. "Maybe for the first dance at the reception. No 'Chicken Dance', because you grooving to that would spark an apocalypse. Which should wait for our honeymoon."

"Willow would handfast us," Xander continued.

"Vows?" she said.

"I, Xander Harris," he said, briefly going down on one knee before her,"do promise to honour, obey, and be your smexy love pinata."

"We're rewriting that one." Buffy pulled the shawl into her lap, exposing tanned shoulders to the sun. "Honeymoon?"

"We sail to Africa." Xander mimed pulling up an anchor. "Tin cans tied to the transom, down around to the Panama Canal. We sail across the Pacific, fighting crime. Supernatural crime."

"That works." Buffy shaded her eyes. "That would be an amazing wedding, if I were...Anne."

"Hey, no worries," Xander said. "I couldn't think of proposing right now. Not enough for a herd."

"Herd?" Buffy said. "In our world, we have the peculiar custom of giving shiny objects, like gold and pretty pretty diamonds to our fiances."

"Cattle. Bride price," he said. "If you're a Zulu or Masai or Batswana, you wouldn't think of marrying a girl without some beef on the hoof in your corral. You? We're talking at least a few hundred prime Hereford."

"How very, um, Texan," Buffy said. "So, if I see a stampede come down the street, you'll be serious?"

"Considering I'll probably be running in front of it," he said, "screaming a high-pitched girly scream, you bet I will be."


	8. Chapter 8

When building a boat, a kinda girlfriend who could single handledly shoulder a diesel engine counted as an asset.

Wearing her workshop overalls, Buffy lugged the Yanmar engine up a ladder by the transom. Two cradles supported the boat at bow and stern. The twin bilge keels stuck out like downward-sloping wings on either side. Xander had chosen them over the traditional centerboard because cutting a long slot in the middle of the hull was a little too risky for his taste. She shifted the engine into the chains running from a block and tackle in the beams. Xander held the engine suspended by the pulley, slowly lowering it down into the cockpit. Buffy guided it into the cradle nailed up in the center of the bilges. They eased the engine into its new home.

Socket wrenches rattled while they fastened the engine down with thick mounting bolts. The concentration in her features reminded him of Anya doing the accounts at the Magic Shop. She hadn't been very good at math. Too abstract. Money to her meant bills in hand or sheep in the pasture. She had finally got it when he had said that it was like being a vengeance demon. All about balancing the books.

Buffy's hip brushed against his. Her hand stroked his arm for the briefest of moments. A full-body shudder and a not-unpleasant throbbing between his legs followed. Oh yeah. Of all the girls he had loved, Buffy's style was playful. Always with a quick touch or an arched back, leaving him dizzy and hard. Just at the knife-edge between coy and tease. Almost as she was daring him to come get it, big boy. So far, they hadn't. That was okay. Last two women he had been with--aside from Miss Let's Sacrifice On A First Date--had fallen into bed with him. In Faith's case, literally.

Going it slow was fine. They had a routine. Cuddling in the hammock at night. Eating together in the morning, with the daily supplement of footsie under the table as part of a complete breakfast. Working on the boat, close to one another. Down to the beach for some sun and some sailing practice in the dory. Every few days they changed up with trips to Merida or the countryside for the tourist thing. If this was Hurricane Buffy, they were in the eye.

They lay next to each other in the cabin for a quick snack. They could stare up at the ceiling. Xander hadn't gotten to building a cabin trunk, the better to work with as much light as possible. The interior had been roughed out with stringers running along the hull between the bulkheads. On either side of where the companionway would be was a small galley to starboard and a head to port. A realization that he would be sailing with Buffy had caused a slight redesign to what would have been toilet and sink. Shower, ho! A sealed compartment under the port berth for a retracting port-a-pottie ate up locker space. It also ensured she wouldn't stage a mutiny after the first overnight trip. A berth on each side would run up to bow, with a expandable saloon table between them. Lockers above and below would contain the ship's gear and, more importantly, the anticipated several tons of luggage Buffy would bring along.

"I can see it now," Buffy said, munching on a carrot stick. "Beaches. Sunsets. Snorkeling."

"Margaritas?" Xander said, downing half a bottle of water.

"We can skip the margaritas." Buffy sipped from her own bottle. She studied the cabin. "One slight problem: two separate berths. Not that I mind the chance to get extra-snuggly with you in one bed."

"There'll be a filler cushion to cover the gap," he said, "between them forward. It'll give us a double berth, and we can take it out during the day. We won't lose a seat. Enough room for us, Dawn, Giles, and Willow."

"What about, say, Kennedy and Olivia?" Buffy asked. "Or Faith?"

"Plenty of room in the cockpit," he said. "We can shuffle around so everyone can fit."

"And Andrew?" she said.

"He stays towed behind in the dinghy," Xander said.

"Perfect!" Buffy sipped her own water, trickles down the front making the overalls cling. "One big bed. I wonder whatever can we do with all that space?"

"I don't know." Xander extended one leg to nudge her thigh. "We could, wild guess, sleep there."

"Other things, Xan." She leaned back against the bare hull, curling a pigtail around a pinkie. "Interesting things. Possibly with...costumes."

"Oh." His voice cracked higher than when puberty had hit. "I already got the eyepatch. Tricorn hat, fake parrot--the panga could stand in a as cutlass. Maybe you're the helpless captive of Dread Pirate Harris."

"You're already tying me to the mast, aren't you?" Buffy crossed her wrists behind her. "In a Princess Leia gold bikini, I bet. Oh help. Help. You want me to be your damsel?"

"Well, there were women pirates." Xander inched closer to her. "I could be the cabin boy, bent over the gunner's daughter. You wanna give me a taste of the cat, Bonnie Summers?"

"Better." Buffy was so close, her breath warm on his lips. "Wanna know who I went as four Halloweens running? She-Ra. I had the dress with the red cape, and the bracers, and the boots, and the headpiece. Ooo, and the sword. Think you can bow down to the Princess of Power?"

"By the Power of Grayskull." Xander ran a palm up a bare arm. "But maybe I like you just like you are."

"Like this?" Buffy assumed a pin-up girl posture, kneeling to the side with a bicep flexed. "You have a kink for Rosie the Riveter?"

In answer, Xander popped the button on one overall strap.

"Hey!" Buffy said.

"C'mon, Buff." Xander stroked where throat met shoulder. "Let me...unwrap my present."

A blur. Weight crashed into him. His head stopped a fraction of an inch from the deck. Buffy's hand fisted in his shirt close to his throat. Sweat beaded on his brow as she straddled his chest. Lithe thighs pinned his arms. His breath rasped in his throat. Like Faith above him--the first time, confused and a little scared and so incredibly horny. The second time, her crazy laugh echoing in the motel room, way more scared and still horny when her hands closed around his neck.

Not Faith.

Buffy.

She stared down at him with an expression he had seen in the worst fights. When she dropped the banter and went full out on the Big Bad. This was the Slayer, pure and naked. No mercy, no quarter. The other Chosen had it here and there. No one else, except maybe Faith, had close to the power of the woman watching him like a tiger licking it's jaws over a juicy sheep. A fingernail traced a path down his chest, almost enough pressure to break the skin. She gently let his head down. Playful. Tiger she may be, but this one had her claws in. Xander froze when she undid the other strap. Slowly, so slowly, she inched it down. A hint of a wicked grin on her lips.

He whimpered as breasts he had prayed to see for over nine years came into view. Perky and firm, just like Buffy herself. His trapped hands ached to touch the stiff little nubs crowning them. Her legs trapped him. After a few seconds of struggle, he surrendered. He always surrendered to her. Down the overalls came, to toned stomach and petite waist and holy mahoney. A delta of trimmed blonde curls in a neat bikini wax, lips pouting within them. Arching back, she unlaced her boots and toed out of them. Her overalls followed, skimmed down legs and off without letting him free.

Naked Buffy naked Buffy naked Buffy...

Her knees opened. Enough to allow him to slide his arms free. A silent question on her features: what was he going to do now? His fingertips spidered up her legs. Smirking, she slid back with a hand already reaching for his fly. His palms cupping her ass stopped her. Oh sweet Lord above, he could sing hosannas about her ass. So round, so firm, so fully packed. He could have bounced a quarter off them. Drawing her forward, he bent his neck up to kiss the inside of her thigh by a knee. She hissed in pleasure. Widening her knees, she brought herself close to him. Salt and musk filled his universe. Closing his eye, he teased up her right thigh. Up and up and Buffy whined and just before-- He laughed within at her yelp when he nipped right below the Holy Grail. A light slap to his head told him her patience was wearing thin. Too bad. She cursed while she failed to get a grip in his buzzcut, as he kissed and nuzzled and mmmmmm.

Buffy was a nummy treat. Xander took his time. Every woman had a rhythm. Sometimes several, with a few reserved for holidays and special occasions. Imagining her touching herself that night, he went for the classic dip-and-lap. Tongue tip just parting the folds. Doing the circuit, seeing the sights. Buffy ground down against him as his tongue flicked right...there. Ooo, sensitive. Through the hood and he could already feel the tremors through her thighs. The temptation of course was to go right for that spot. Anya had taught him better. Half the fun was getting the customer past the bargain bins and into the high priced merchandise. Tongue flattening, he tasted her with long, slow licks as two fingers added in their own contribution to the haggling. He heard her strangled screaming while there was pumping and arching and pressing right there. Then his tongue teased aside a tiny fold of flesh and licked. Once.

Xander stood. Buffy lay on her side, flanks heaving. Shrugging his shoulders, he eased off his T-shirt. It hit the hull with a wet splat. She got to her knees again while he toyed with the fly. A hand viper-quick snatched his wrist. She made it very clear that the zipper was to go down and stay down. Hips swiveling, the pants puddled around his ankles. Next time, Velco seams. Her eyes widened. Yep, commando as usual, Buff. Saw it once, now enjoy it up close and personal. Undoing his boots, he stepped out of them just enough to kick his jeans out of the way. He tightened them back on. With a wicked grin, Buffy produced a foil packet from her overalls. Quite the Girl Scout. Always prepared. He reached to take it--

"NAH!" Xander almost collapsed when a hot, eager mouth sheathed him in thin latex. "Where the hell did you learn that?"

"Watching Andrew and the Immortal is educational." Buffy tapped Dread Pirate Harris. "Anya wasn't kidding. Stallion."

"Gonna be a gelding when my balls burst," he said, suddenly pinning her by the arms. "How do you--you okay?'

"I--I--"

"It's okay." He moved his hands to a safe distance away from her. "That better?"

"Yeah." Buffy stroked his hip. "Much."

"Alright." He swore, after this he was asking Willow to locate-spell Spike's ashpile so he could salt the fucking earth. "You have a safeword? Mine's 'Larry'."

"'Doublemeat Combo Meal'," Buffy said.

"Good." Xander dipped close to kiss her, tongue twining with hers. "Ready?"

"Get IN already!" Buffy glanced down to his feet. "Um, shouldn't you take those off?"

"Nah." With a single thrust, his hips met hers. Oh, forget breasts, he could sing the Kyrie fucking Eleison about her kegels.

"Wh-hah-hyyyyyyy?" Buffy ground back at him.

"Traction!"


	9. Chapter 9

"Stevedore," Buffy murmured.

"What's that mean?" Xander said, running a hand along her hip.

"Not sure," she said, turning to him. "But I want to find out more. In depth."

"Can we stop the fact-finding mission a bit?" Xander slumped back on his back. "Woman of steel, man of kleenex here."

"Aw, you're not kleenex." Buffy mounted him, straddling his belly. "You're Bounty, the quicker-picker-upper."

"Mercy! The spirit is willing but the flesh--" Xander squinted down. "Okay, is not weak, but needs a breather. And I think I sprained my tongue."

"No!" Buffy cupped his face with her hands. "We have to save your tongue. A telethon. Dawn and Giles can man the phones while I do tricks. Maybe juggling."

"And this?" Xander pointed down at brave, brave Sir Harris.

"The Smithsonian," Buffy said. "We can put a velvet rope around it and a spotlight, and tourists from all over can marvel at the natural treasure."

"Will it be an interactive exhibit?" he said.

"A static display," Buffy said. "On short term loan until it gets back into my private vault."

Buffy gave him one last encouraging squeeze before leaping off. Xander's head thumped back against the pillow. No wonder the only serious lovers she had had were two vampires and an Army Ranger with a Captain America implant. They were the only ones who could keep up with a revved up Slayer. He had had some serious endurance training with Cordy, and had earned a gold medal in the Anya Sexalympics. After surviving Faith, he figured he could handle Buffy no problem. Wrong. Being Buffy's man-bitch had left him feeling stone-washed. In a cement mixer, filled with boulders. There were still splinters in his ass after the Ceremonial Laying of the Keel. He needed a workout program. Some squats, some thrusts... Redundant. Maybe a light morning triathalon.

Eventually he rolled out of their futon bed. A silent agreement a week ago had had them move into the bedroom together; a dinky army cot or air mattress wouldn't cut it. Slipping on a robe, he padded into the living room. He fired up the electric kettle, spooning in redbush tea into a mug from the jar next to Buffy's Ethiopian whole bean. He ground up some of the latter for her French press.  
The pungent tea hit him with a welcome rush. Sipping it at the table, he watched a nude Buffy practice Chinese sword forms with a jian in the center of the room. Now this was the way to start your day.

What had once been a bunch of bare rooms was a home. Along with the futon were shelves and a simple cabinet he had cobbled up out of scrap wood. The rucksack he had lived out of for two years--even at the Botswana camp--finally was folded away. Some of her things from her Roman apartment had been shipped over. One of Dawn's watercolours of a Tuscan landscape hung by a window. A small wooden rack held a small selection of weapons sent by Vatican diplomatic pouch. Lindiwe had shipped over the few keepsakes he had gathered. A carved Yoruban footstool, a fetish mask from Ghana, a Zulu iklwa stabbing spear. Hers and his mixed with one another. Like the apartment he had shared with Anya. Though most of the decorating had been hers, with one small corner reserved for his GI Joe action figures and--

And.

Xander allowed the wave of quiet sorrow to pass through him. Not Anya. Not Anne. This was life with Buffy.

He had known that Anya was dead.

Only now did he admit she was gone.

"Thinky, Xander?" Buffy asked, pulling on a robe. The jian was tossed into the sheath five feet away.

"Just admiring the view." Always keep a smile on. No sense in being a downer.

"I'll have to charge admission." She draw a cup of java from her Bodum. "Or you can stick a few pesos in my garter. I can always dance for you instead."

"Let me check on the prices for brass poles," Xander said, reaching for his laptop.

"Lap dances are better!" Buffy jumped into his. A quick bump-and-grind killed conscious thought for a second. "So, there's a question I've been wondering about for a while. You'd been with two slayers. Me and Faith. Who was better?"

"Oh, come on." Sense returned to his brain with a crash. "You can't be going there. Isn't there an easier question? ' Do I look big in that dress?'"

"Sorry Xander, went and gone." Buffy grinned wickedly. "Fess. Up."

"It's--we're talking completely different categories." Sweat beaded on his brow. "Faith was, uh, how can I say this? A Pan Galactic Gargleblaster."

"I require translation from the geek," Buffy said. "You know I'm not nearly as good at languages as Dawn."

"Most powerful and expensive drink in the galaxy," Xander said. "It's supposed to feel like getting hit in the head by a gold brick wrapped in a lemon peel."

"Omigod, you are so lucky Faith is in Australia!" she said. "So that makes me a Shirley Temple? A daquiri?"

"Different category completely," Xander said. "With Faith, it was incredible going down. Only at the end everything's a blur and you're naked in the street holding your clothes. You? Think theme park."

"So, I'm Disneyland?" Buffy said tartly. "Unlike her, safe and family friendly."

"More like Bush Gardens," Xander said, running a fingertip between golden curls. "With the roller coaster and the tilt-a-whirl and the teacup rides. And the cotton candy and the fudge while we're just wandering about. Lots of fun games on the midway."

"Do you win me a prize?" Buffy wiggled in his lap.

"Biggest teddy bear ever," Xander promised. "And lucky me, I have a season ticket that gets me past all the lines."

"I think someone's earned a ride on the Buffycoaster." Buffy slipped yet another packet from her kimono. "You must be this tall to--oh, you are!"

"Stuff me," he choked out as she worked on him, "shoot me, mount me!"

"Now just sit back and enjoy the thrills," Buffy cooed. "Let me steer you around the curves."

++++

"Why do I carry the boat?" Buffy's voice boomed from under the dory held over her shoulders.

"See the hat?" Xander jerked a thumbe at the peaked, braided captain's hat perched on his head. "I'm the captain. I have important captainy things to do."

'Which are?" Buffy asked.

"Carrying the beer and food." Xander presented the cooler. "I am also busy figuring out where to tell you to go."

"I see," Buffy said. She fell in step behind him while they walked to the waterfront. "That makes me Gilligan."

"Um." Xander froze. "This is one of those moments when the boyfriend should be really, really careful. Right?"

"Yuh-huh."

"Okay, since you're blond and prone to homicidal fury," Xander said, "you can be the Skipper."

"Which makes you Gilligan," Buffy replied with a smirk.

"You would think, but not. I outmaneuver you." Xander continued on. "Since I'm chartering this ride, I'm Mr. Howell."

"Where's Mrs. Howell?" Buffy said

"Mrs. Howell is Willow." Xander helped lift the boat over the sea-wall. "Which should keep you happy, since lesbian. Marriage of convenience."

"And the Professor would be Giles." Buffy dragged the bow of the dory into the surf.

"Dawn can be Mary-Anne, all sweet and innocent." Xander shipped the oars into the locks.

"You wouldn't say that if you had to listen to her music all day at the palazzo." Buffy shuddered. "I will never forgive Spike for turning her into a punkette. Constant Ramones, Clash, Dead Kennedies. Why do you think I listen to Super Sounds of the 80's? Only antidote."

"Since we're sticking to classic Scoobies," Xander said, putting on his lifejacket, "Cordy would be Ginger. Wrong hair colour, but she was a starlet. Well, in her own mind. Though, who would be Gilligan?"

"Sorry, Xan." Buffy grabbed the oars. "You're Gilligan, I'm the Skipper, Giles is the Professor. Cordy is Mrs. Howell after she kicked the rich guy to the curb after winning big in the divorce. Willow is Mary-Anne, since she was always smarter than she looked in the show. Oz would be Ginger, since he was quiet and his hair was orange sometimes."

"Damn." Xander fingered the peak of his cap. "Do I at least get to keep the hat?"

With that, the SS Minnow was off. Xander clutched his precious hat as Buffy worked the oars. Slayer strength meant the dory left a wake worthy of a power cruiser behind it. She raised sail two hundred yards out. The dory sported a miniature version of the catboat's rig: a small mast in the bow. The four-sided sail hung between the boom and the gaff, a spar set at a sharp angle near the mast's peak. The stretch of Dacron luffed in the breeze. Buffy swept an oar one last time. The sail stopped flapping, filled with wind, and slowly the dory moved. Xander inserted the daggerboard into the trunk in front of him. The dory settled into a neat beam reach, sailing parallel to the wind on a westward course.

Xander steered with the tiller while Buffy adjusted the sail. His one attempt at sailing had not been a success. He was more a turn the throttle and go guy. Buffy had had to fish him out of the water after the boom had turned into the first catapult-launched Harris. Being the tiller-man was fine. He was expert at moving wood back and forth. Buffy handled the sail and rigging with an expert's touch. A few weeks of practice and her superhuman muscle memory had brought back all her old skills.

It was incredible to watch. Behind the wheel of a car, she was either overcautious to a Willowish degree or too skillful by half. Every Scooby had dreaded riding with a Slayer who treated automobiles like a F-16 on afterburner. Roman drivers were terrified of "The Blonde". Here, working the sheets and stays, it was as if she were in a grappling match. Muscles beneath bronzed skin tensed a second before a shift in the wind. Her athletic body arched over the gunwales when the dory heeled. They were running with the wind, now. The most dangerous point of sail, full out downwind. All too easy to turtle or jibe. Buffy kept the Minnow on course as easily as handling a bunch of mook vamps in a cemetery.

After an hour, she tacked back and forth to land. Xander raised the daggerboard several inches when they entered shallow water. He took out a length of fishing line and a colourful jig lure. A quick toss overboard sent the jig dancing along the ocean bottom. Handline fishing had been the only thing that had kept him sane on the long voyage by dhow with Sagal to Hargeysa. That or pick at the bandages on his ass covering the wounds from grenade shrapnel. Not that he ever caught anything. In fish bathrooms all over the world there were probably warnings about The One-Eyed Man scribbled on the walls. The sheer pointlessness of jigging the lure about was as close to meditation he got outside the workshop.

"The one thing I hated about days with my grandad," Buffy said, "was that. I'd end up watching him gut fish. Ugh."

"This from the woman," Xander said, "who I've seen knee deep in demon viscera."

"Contexty issue. I don't eat those." Buffy curled a lip. "Food should come in its natural form: saran-wrapped, on a foam platter, and sanitized for my protection."

"Don't worry." Xander scratched underneath his eyepatch with a thumb. The heat of the day made the skin there prickly. "The restraint order is still there."

"Isn't it hot with that on?" Buffy lowered the sail. The anchor chain rattled as she cast it out. "You should think about finally gettting a new eye."

"Prosthetic?" Xander brought up the jig. Nope, just some seaweed. "Never had the time. And with the patch, I'm all cool and dangerous. A glass eye just makes me Mr. Walks Into Things Sometimes. I'm holding out for a bionic one, anyway. Mr. Nabbitt's working on it."

"Will it shoot energy beams?" Buffy said.

"Let's not get all crazy." Xander mimed shouldering a crossbow. "Strictly a basic model. Target lock, teleconferencing data link, X-Ray mode to see into the lady's showers. With, okay, maybe a cool red laser for the Terminator look."

"The patch does add to the toughness." Buffy reached out. "Very double-oh. I just miss the chance to look into two of those hazel--"

"Larry!" Xander recoiled.

"Oh, dammit." Buffy's features crumpled. "I've have so many 'worst moments of my life', I could scrapbook them. All of us, we could have parties. Sit down with some paste and clippings and talk about the so wonderful way things were. That night--"

"It wasn't your fault, Buff," Xander said. "It wasn't the most stellar plan we came up with then. You go with the plan you got. I chose to back you up. I chose to grab Kennedy out of the line of fire."

"You have no idea what it was like." Buffy folded her legs up against her chest. "Your scream."

"I, uh, have a pretty good memory." Xander flinched at the ghostly pressure against his lost eye. "You know how the big trauma, you never remember? Not so much with that. Which is why Rule Number One is do not poke the Xander near the face."

"I hate it," Buffy said, lips twisted as if tasting poison. "We can't be in the bathroom together because I get wiggy and you can't get that stupid patch wet and dammit I want you to slam me up against the stall and take me like a fucking Viking."

Silence.

"You really missed that sex, huh?" Xander ventured. "Also, I happen to know exactly where to get plastic horned hats and battle-axes. And is there a longboat fetish you aren't telling me about?"

"Figure of speech, Xan." Buffy chuckled, knuckling tears out of her eyes. "Can I see...it?"

"It?" Xander lightly tapped the patch. "You mean, this."

"Yes." Buffy curled her arms around her bent legs. "It's a part of you. We've been naked all week but...I want to see all of you."

A droplet of sweat rolled down his back. Never, ever did he remove the patch. Only behind locked doors and only long enough to wash. Taking it off was more than nakedness. It was being totally bare. God, what would she think? He should get a glass eye after all. Buffy-- She sat there, waiting. Expectant. Gritting his teeth, he slid the patch off. Even though they were alone offshore and by a deserted cove, he jerked his left side away from land. Buffy leaned forward with hands on the gunwales. Her face paled beneath the month-old tan. Waves slapped against the hull as she stared into the void where his eye had been.

"It's not what," she said, voice faint, "I expected. No, um--"

"Hideous scarring?" Xander said. "Caleb's Jack Sprat act only crushed the, uh, soft bits. Socket's fine. They just had to put in the implant."

"Is that it?" Buffy asked, pointedly not pointing. "It looks black."

"The conformer," Xander said. After a moment he popped it out. "It's this clear piece of plastic, keeps the eyelids from falling in."

"Um. Pink," Buffy said.

"The sclera," Xander explained. "The doctors took some of it from the inside of the hollow bit and, uh, put it over the implant."

"Not nearly as bad as I thought." Buffy sat up. "Okay. Um, Xan, I'm just going to--"

Hurriedly jerking on the patch, Xander held her up by her lifejacket while she emptied her breakfast over the side.

"Doesn't this bring me back," Xander said as Buffy retched one final time. "Just like high school, asking a girl out. At least it didn't come with a face slap."

"I have--" Buffy righted herself. "That night, that scream, I nearly lost you. I've lost you for two years to Africa. I never wanna lose you again."

"Buff, you never--"

The world stopped. Buffy proffered the two gleaming rings taken from a pocket of her cut-offs.

Silver.

Two hands clasped around a heart, a crown above them.

"They're not the ones Angel and I had," Buffy said. "I was in Galway last year, training Fiona. A stall at a fair was selling them. I didn't know why I bought them. Angel had disappeared, and we all got that it was probably for the last time. I just-- I wanted to think there might be one other guy somewhere. Lucky me, there is."

A perfect moment. Was this what Angel had felt just before his demon side popped out like the Jack-in-the-Box from Hell?

"--and now that I think of it," Buffy babbled, "giving you these that probably remind you of the sometimes evil ex- might not actually be a romantic gesture, actually, creepy as hell, Xander, say--"

Buffy, on her way to fight. Running up to her, had to tell her--

"--so sorry, you must still love Anh, I thought--"

Looking at her now, love and confusion and trust drifting over her face like storm fronts over the sea. She had always trusted him. Trust.

"--please?"

Anya's hand sliding away from his at the wedding. The rain soaking his tuxedo. Her head bowed in sorrow at his betrayal.

He placed his hands over hers, the rings cupped between them.

The thing about perfect moments, they never lasted.

"Buffy," he said, the world sliding away, "there is something I have to tell you."


	10. Chapter 10

Xander's arms ached from the weight of the bags. It had been a tiring row back to Progreso, even with the tow from a sympathetic fisherman. Some pain a man has to endure, though. Setting them down on the doorstep, he peered into the darkened house. The punching bag that usually hung in the small back yard had been hauled into the living room. A number of dents and tears testified to what tiny yet powerful fists could do in the heat of anger. The bedroom door was closed. A very light twist on the knob told him she had made it back after swimming to shore in a fury. He did not dare knock. There be dragons.

Cutlery clinked while he set the table. Bowls, spoons, and the tubs of ice cream he had picked up at a mall in Merida. Two trays of frozen brownies and a couple cans of spray-on whipped cream joined them. The bedroom door creaked open while he ladled out scoops of Caramel Ripple and Oreo Chunk. For a petite woman, Buffy had amazing stomping skills. The floor seemed to quake beneath her. Oh boy. She was in sweats. That indicated a maximum frump-strength sulk. Wordlessly, he pulled out a chair. She glared with eyes red-rimmed from hours of crying. He retreated to the opposite side as she tossed several mini-brownies into a bowl. A half-can of whipped cream created Dawn Summers' only edible recipe, meant to be eaten in the direst of crises: boyfriend screw-ups or ends of the world.

"This is completely wrong," Buffy said after several minutes of silent attack with a spoon. "Willow should be here so we can talk about how you are the biggest idiot alive. Boyfriends shouldn't be the ones providing the Haagen-Daaz therapy."

"I get a pass." Xander slipped out a worn laminated card from his wallet. Glitter sparkled beneath plastic. "See? 'One of the girls'. Unless you get a petition out, I'm still in the club."

"I can't believe you have that." The slightest hint of a smile creased her lips before disappearing. "Fine. You provided ice cream. If you think you've earned brownie points, you've got a hell of a lot charged on the Groveling Visa to--"

"Wrong," Xander said. "I'm not here to apologize."

"You're proud of what you did?" Buffy jabbed the spoon into the runny mixture. "You lied to my face. You sent Angel to hell!"

"This isn't how it works." Xander clicked on the kettle on instinct. Making bush tea for him was like Buffy fidgeting with a stake on a quiet patrol. "See, notice I'm not Spike. He had to crawl to you. I won't. You're pissed? With you on that, you have a right. Want to call it off? Chuck those rings down the drain if you want to. Expect me to roll over and beg? No."

"Then why are you here?" Buffy said, leaping to her feet.

"To talk." The kettle whistled. "Wild concept. Snark and roll my eyes? Easy. Actually talk to the person I love about something that's bugging me? She might dump me for that. Only it gets out anyway, and then it goes to hell. Gotta love the irony here. Me with the biggest mouth on the planet, and I almost never say a goddamn thing that matters."

"A tip: when you get cold feet," Buffy said, the spoon raised for a deadly blow, "an 'it's not you, it's me' is enough."

"I am never so sure of anything," Xander said, studying the whirl of tea leaves in his mug, "than this."

"Great way of showing it," Buffy said. "I never thought you'd show even worse timing than the Wedding From Hell, but yay you."

"Fun shindig, wasn't it?" Xander said. "Here was this crazy, wonderful woman who was ready to give her heart to the luckiest schmoe in Sunnydale. They might have had a life if he hadn't gone to their wedding with a lie in his heart. Instead, all they got was one night at the end. I won't hurt you like I did Ahn."

"Oh." Buffy kneaded her temples. "This must be true love. I have all the symptoms. Headache, heart flutter, nausea."

"I think that's because you ate the entire bowl," Xander said. "Don't you get brainfreeze?"

"Ow! Yes." Buffy's eyes scrunched up in agony. "Alright, Xan. I'm here. Not going anywhere. Why did you tell me Willow said to kick his ass?"

It all came down to this. These moments, when you were so beyond fear and worry and shame. Just you and a choice. Live. Die. Truth. Lie. Buffy might never forgive him. Forget getting kicked out of bed, he would be kicked out of her life. If that happened, he might as well have ended up buried in the crater next to Ahn. Only the consequences did not matter. The big moments always came. He had discovered that in the basement with Jack O'Toole, deciding whether he would live like a zeppo or die like a man. Not proving himself in front of Buffy or being the Big Damn Hero. It was him and him alone, one man alone in the dark.

"First reason: selfish," he said, wetting a dry throat with the tea. "I hated Angel. Not just Angelus, Angel himself. I hated the way he treated you, like a goddamn reward in his great quest for salvation."

"That's how you saw us?" Buffy said quietly.

"I'm what you might call biased," Xander said. "See, Spike? An arrogant, vicious prick. And that was even after he got the rims and spoiler in Africa. But he fought through a hundred miles of ground glass and barbed wire for you . He never assumed you were his to have and hold like a cosmic Crackerjack prize. What killed me is how you let Angel do that. And I knew if Willow did the spell nothing he did to you would matter, and I'd never--"

"Never have a chance with me." Buffy crossed her arms over her chest. "If Angel was gone, you thought I might finally notice you. Guess you got your wish. Killing him killed us. We were never the same after it."

"Funny thing about wishes," Xander said, drawing a doodle in condensation left by the mug, "is that when they're granted, you get what you wanted good and hard. So, I'll admit I wasn't free of the ulterior that night. That wasn't the only reason for the lie."

"The second reason," Buffy said, "was that I was weak. That's what you thought, right?"

"I thought--" Xander sighed. "I thought you would try everything you could to save someone you loved. I thought that it was a long shot for Willow to get second-times-lucky. She wasn't exactly Zantanna in those days. I thought if we gave Angelus an inch we were all dead."

"And you were right," Buffy said. She shivered despite the mild evening heat. "He had me on my knees. No friends, no sword. No cavalry charging over the hill. No hope. There was only me, doing what had to be done. If I had tried to stall him... Acathla would have had a global Big Gulp."

"And that's the third reason," Xander said, "I lied."

"For the world?" Buffy said.

"I didn't give a damn about the world," Xander said. "You want the third reason? It's simple. I was seventeen. I was terrified. I didn't want you to die."

"That's not simple at all, Xander." Buffy dragged fingers through her disheveled hair. "Dammit. You're wrong, you're right. I don't know what to say or what to do. Are you asking you to, what, forgive you?"

"No, I'm not. There's nothing to forgive." Xander drew a deep, shaky breath. "Because if I was sent back in time, right to that moment, knowing how much you hate me right now, I would lie again. In a heartbeat."

+++++

There are times in life when a man has to stand up for what he believes in. Other times, he sleeps underneath a boat. Xander chucked a pebble from under his sleeping bag. The overturned dory dragged into the back yard served as an improvised tent. He had slept in worse and rougher places. Of course, the silent frost in the bedroom Buffy had fled back into after his Big Speech made Mogadishu seem positively bursting with friendly small-town cheer. Giving her some space had seemed a good idea. Like, say, Nebraska. Unzipping the side, he slid into the bag. A previously-undetected rock poked into his right kidney. Great, this was every Christmas with the folks ever--

The dory's hull echoed with the sound of fat, heavy raindrops smacking down.

Joy.

Gravel crunched to the side. Xander reflexively grabbed his panga and a stake. It occurred to him that while Progreso had been demon-free so far... And Buffy had never been all that great with the Slaydar even when she wasn't distracted. The footsteps stopped. Peering out from under a gunwhale, he saw two knitted vampire slippers just in front of his nose. They had been a gift from Vi on Buffy's last birthday. The girl had been going through another crafty phase then. A light thump above him announced Buffy taking a seat. Heels knocked against the outside, a regular tattoo.

"Don't be an ass, Xander," Buffy said through the daggerboard trunk. "You're going to get a cold. Sleep in the hammock, at least."

"Thought you'd like me doing a little penance," Xander said, laying a hand on the spot just below where she sat.

"You would think so." Manicured fingernails drummed on plywood. "I had this entire mad ready. A real epic one with rants and tears and telling you exactly what I thought of you. Then, you big jerk, you totally ruin it with ice cream and reason. It can make a girl cross."

"Chalk up one more example of my evil," he said.

"So, I've been spending the past hour," Buffy said, a heel smacking dangerously hard, "running down every awful thing you've ever done. Every time you've screwed up, every time you lied, every time I've been ashamed to be your friend. Wanna know what?"

"All ears, Buff," he said.

"I sat there," she said, and he could hear the choked sob over the drumming of the rain, "and I remembered going down to fight the Master. I remember how much it hurt when he bit me, and that the last thing I'd ever think was 'this water is cold.' And then I remembered coming awake, and you, and there were lips, and being alive and will you let me in? There's sogginess here."

Xander lifted up the dory. Buffy scooted underneath it. Her robe was soaked through and her hair was a tangled mess and her face was blotched. It didn't matter. She was beautiful, she was here, and now she was in his arms. Xander cradled her as she cried into his shoulder. They rocked together like he and Willow had on Kingsman's Bluff. He hadn't any real memory of what he had said to Wills then. His entire body had been on fire from her Force Lightning. Only the sense of what he had remained. It's okay. I'm sorry. It'll be alright. What he had told a dreaming, happy Anya in the last hour of that final night. He meant every word. Every woman he had loved, he hurt. It was a law of nature. But every once in a while, a man gets second chances. Xander was not letting go of this one. Ever.

Er.

Well.

"Buff," he said, a red alert coming from his side, "ribs! Ribs!"

"What? Ooops!" Buffy touched his flanks. "Are you okay?"

"Few compound fractures, I'll shake it off." Xander flicked a few bedraggled strands of hair away from her features. "Just glad you're here, even if you were pissed. Thought you would have packed up for Rome."

"Running away never works out," Buffy said, shrugging. "It only leads to polyester, bad tipping, and eating beans out of a can."

"As one who is also a vet of the paper-hat brigade," Xander said, dragging off his shirt to dry her off, "I get it. So. Are we, uh, okay?"

"What you did was horrible." Buffy reached out. She slipped off his eyepatch. "It was petty. It was also brave and strong and such a hard thing to do. You didn't make me send Angel to hell. He had already opened the way before I got there. The only thing the lie did was give me that extra edge I needed."

"Buff, if I could, I'd change things," Xander said. "But not if I'd lose you."

"You're pretty persistent about that," Buffy said, tracing about his left eye with cool fingertips. "Funny, isn't it? That night, when I went down to the Master expecting to die. It was written, after all. Angel, my own true love, stayed in to mourn. You? No prophecy stopped you from dragging him by the ear and bringing me back."

"I never was good at the written." Xander grinned wolfishly. "Better at the orals."

"Hah." Buffy blushed a tad in the dark. "See, Xan, that doesn't make you a better man than Angel. It doesn't make him a worse one than you. It just makes you a guy that a girl might find pretty handy to have around."

"Also, I do windows," Xander said. Lying down, he pulled her with him to snuggle in the sleeping bag. "You're sure? After all this, you'd still take a chance on an admitted idiot like me?"

"I've been trying a new fashion," Buffy replied, intertwining her fingers with his, "called adulthood."

"How's that working out?"

"It chafes and makes my ass look fat." Buffy spun to face him. Silver glittered in the dark. "Xander--"

"Let's put a ring on it.." Xander took the smaller of the two. "How do these go on?"

"You wear them on the right hand," Buffy said, "heart pointing towards you. Shows yours is taken."

"For once, not with a sacrificial knife." Xander paused. "Didn't you wear it on your left--"

"That means engagement or marriage." Buffy smiled ruefully. "Angel explained it just a bit differently. I think the right hand. Not because I feel less, about you. Maybe baby steps, this time. In heels."

"When I put a ring on your left," Xander said, the promise ring hovering over her right ring finger, "it'll be in front of everyone we care about, so they'll see I can be even happier than I am now."

"'When'." Buffy drew out his right wrist. "Feeling pretty confident, there. After all this?"

"It's not like we'll ever fight again," Xander said, sliding it on.

"We won't?" Buffy's voice hitched when the larger of the rings encircled his finger in silver warmed by her skin. Snug, but comfortable.

"Of course not!" Xander insisted. "Because now we understand each other perfectly. I won't ever say anything that ticks you the hell off. You'll never do anything that makes me wan't to pound my head against the wall. We'll always agree on everything, and never a harsh word shall pass between our lips."

They clasped hands, each bearing a sign of their love. Around them, rain pattered on the dory. The storm stayed outside while they sheltered close to one another within.

"Liar."


	11. Chapter 11

"I'll miss this place," Buffy said, taping up the last box.

The house was bare once again. Cardboard packing boxes contained everything the two of them had collected in their four months in Progreso. The handpainted plates picked up from an arts fair in Merida. The calavera mask and the skeletal calaca figurines they had geeked over during Dia des Meurtos. The horn from the T'thrack water demon Buffy had slayed while patrolling Cancun in the aftermath of Hurricane Wilma. All packed away in styrofoam peanuts and newspaper. The furniture had been given away to local charities or sold in the local markets. The only sign they had lived there as a strand of lights from three days ago, when they had toasted "Feliz Navidad" before an inflatable Christmas palm tree.

Xander checked the workroom for anything left behind. Nope. Empty. The tools sold or packed up, the tables and sawhorses knocked down to scrap. Closing the door hurt, just a bit. By the front, Buffy tipped the shipping agent's men loading their things into a van. Kennedy had agreed to store their stuff at her estate in the Hamptons. Neither of them could agree whether to ship it to the Roman palazzo or Botswana. Locking the front door, he handed the keys to the woman from the rental agency. They stood on the front walk with little more than they had arrived with. Buffy with her small carry-on, Xander with his rucksack. Buffy nestled against him, ring glinting on her right hand, while they said a quiet goodbye. Reluctantly, Xander pedaled away on the Flying Pigeon with Buffy in her usual perch on the rear rack.

They biked down the streets of Progreso. There, the restaurant where he had watched the beach framed between sandals. There, where she had sat. There, where he had tumbled over the malecon into the sand. There, where Buffy had melted beneath his fingers. There, there, and a rattle of bicycle chain spinning it was gone behind them. Xander pedaled along the waterfront to a breakwater jutting out into the sea. There within a protected harbor lay a marina. On the launching ramp was their boat. Black copper paint on the bottom of the hull, bright white above the waterline. Green the colour of Buffy's eyes trimmed the top edges and the cabin trunk. Brass fittings and portlights gleamed in the sun. The tall wooden mast in the eyes and the bowsprit were bare of sail.

Buffy hefted a bottle of tequila. Somehow that was more appropriate than bubbly. Dressed in a light blouse and capris, she was every inch the yachtsgirl ready to christen her vessel. Xander stood behind her with hands upon her wrists, hugging her close. A-one and a-two and a CRACK! Horns and whistles sounded from the onlookers as the catboat--"Heart of Gold" stenciled on the bow--slid off the trailer into the water for the first time. It did not immediately sink or blow up. Clearly, those in charge of the Xander Harris Comedy Karma were sleeping on the job. He waited a few more minutes in case of kraken, pirate attack, or meteor.

Huh. Almost disappointing.

By the time they stepped onto the slip, the hired motorboat had nudged the Heart into its mooring. They made fast with a few lines and a dropped anchor. Xander stowed their things in the cabin. There was a lot of light. He had built the trunk overhead taller than usual. The last thing he needed was a perma-hunch. What had once been stringers and bare bulkheads was finished in dark hardwood sanded and varnished to a glossy sheen. The berths were upholstered in colourful Mayan fabrics Buffy had picked out. Xander joined her in the roomy cockpit, slatted benches along each side able to host three people each. Lockers underneath them allowed for more storage. At the stern was the small, spoked brass wheel for the rudder. Sailing controls ran neatly down to the helm.

"All ship-shape and Bristol-fashion," Xander said, throwing an arm about her shoulders. "See, making with the salty talk already. Pretty soon I'll be able to steer this boat into something other than a rock."

"You wear the hat, I'll pilot. Much safer all around." Buffy ran a hand along polished wood. "Where do we go from here?"

"There's some islands to the north," Xander said, free hand absently massaging her neck. "Scorpion Reef. I hear there's some diving there. We could rent some scuba gear. Or, I could stay on board to perv on your ass while you snorkel."

"I mean, everything." Buffy kissed one tanned upper arm. "I can't see us sailing around for a few months, then going back to the same old same old."

"Come back to Africa with me." Xander swept an arm at the mouth of the marina harbour. "Do what we talked about. The organization still needs a lot of work. We could use anyone who understands psychology or social work. You could be the African Council's house mom."

"What about something outside the Order?" Buffy asked. "I know Anya had a life planned out for the two of you. She dropped hints every so often."

"A small business. Well, small until it became AhnCorp International." Xander said. "Once we had the money, Ahn was going to set us up as our own subcontracting company. I'd handle the burly man stuff, she'd run the books. Maybe a small custom furniture outfit on the side."

"You could even have had a shop." Buffy leaned against the railing, gazing out west. "That weapons chest you made me was so beautiful. One of the things I really missed losing in the sinkhole. We could do that. Quit the Order, find some little town on the coast. If we need someone up with math, Willow could be Accounting."

"We could," Xander said. He turned Buffy to face him. "But that was Ahn's life. Not ours. Buffy, you love training the baby-slayers. You aren't even close to finished with setting up the Order."

"And you?" Buffy asked. "You've given up your entire life to follow me."

"Into hell, and that isn't a metaphor." Xander shook his head. "I didn't give up anything. I shared it."

A smile bloomed on her lips. The same one as over the cratered Hellmouth. One that realized that life would never be the same.

"Xan?'"

"Yeah, Buff?"

"Yes."

++++

"The cuffs are tight," Xander said.

"Let me check," Riley Finn said. He adjusted the handcuffs binding Xander's right wrist to the bar rail. "There. That better?"

"I'm feeling the wonders of circulation," Xander said. "I still think Buffy is blowing this way out of proportion. Hell, you ditch one wedding..."

"I should tell you," Riley said, gesturing at the loaded speargun on the bar, "that if you do panic, Buffy said to aim for the kneecap. That's only if you get out of the sleeper hold, though."

"You're a prince, Ri," Xander said to his best man. "Maybe I should have picked someone else, though. She sees you in that, I have zero chance."

"She did love a man in uniform." Riley brushed invisible lint off his crisp Army dress blues, festooned with ribbons and medals.

"Big shoulders, great tailoring, shiny things. Total Buffy bait." Xander gestured at his own pearl-button white guyabera and black slacks. "Knew I should have gone for the tux. The tux, I can rock."

"Places, places," Andrew shouted as he careened into the bar. "Best man, do you have the rings?"

"Calm down," Xander said to the huffing mini-Watcher. "It's not your wedding."

"You don't understand, we're behind, and there are canapes." Andrew gasped, hands clasped in glee. "Oh, you're perfect. This is exactly like Worf and Jadzia Dax, two bright hearts of the Federation united in perfect love. Without the tragic death where Jadzia dies and comes back in a new host and things get awkward."

"I'm more Sheridan and Delenn," Xander said.

"Can I hug?" Andrew asked.

"What the hell, go for it." Xander grimaced when Andrew embraced him like a lamprey. Or a gay wight, draining levels of straightness. "Yeah, that's enough."

Outside came the sounds of Oz tuning up his guitar. Xander downed the last of his ice water. If I pick the cuffs and break a bottle over Riley's head-- No, the man's rated expert. I won't make it to the door. You can do it, Harris. One step at a time. He kneaded some life back into his wrist after Riley released the cuff. Heart pounding, he walked side by side with his best manout of the restaurant. The wedding party waited on the beach in the warmth of a January morning in the Yucatan. Holy cow, how many people had they invited? So much for the small and intimate. Half the Sunnydale survivors sat beside at least twenty Slayers invited over from Africa. David Nabbitt chatted with Faith. Well, his mouth moved while his eyes remained firmly on the prize of the breasts revealed by her low-cut little black dress.

The Harris side was represented by Uncle Rory and his mom. His uncle had landed on his feet in Cleveland. He had gone into business with that Krelvin guy in a demon funeral parlour. Xander tried not to think of why demons would want a taxidermist as a mortician. Clem sat beside Jessica, offering a tissue. How those two had ended up together was a story he'd find out eventually. Along with demanding video of Tony Harris getting served divorce papers through the bars of Cook County Jail after a brawl in the buffet line at Circus Circus.

Almost no tremble in his legs as he approached the chuppa. Willow in a peasant blouse and dark-green ankle-length skirt stood beneath the white cloth supported by four halberds. She mouthed encouragement to him. That, or a warning that if he screwed up this one he'd be the next guest in Amy's old cage. The judge for the civil ceremony and the four witnesses--three Mexican bishops and one cardinal--waited to one side. Thankfully, not in uniform. His Holiness did have a soft spot for the senior Slayer. Xander kinda regretted calling him Pope Palpatine. Even he looked exactly like--

Every neuron in Xanders brain misfired when Oz rocked into a slow instrumental version of Leonard Cohen's "Halleleujah". White dress, exactly the same as that night beneath the Hellmouth. Blonde hair. Walking strong down the beach on the arm of Giles, in his best Watcherly tweeds. A single veil hid her face from his, but nothing could dim the strength in her eyes.

The civil ceremony was mostly a blur after that.

"And now," Willow said, coming forward after the final words were said and papers signed, "I stand before you to join my two best friends before the goddess. Or, um, gods and goddesses. Or God singular if you're insisting on a patriarchal definition of religion and maybe I should just say higher principles for atheists--"

"Will," Xander said in a low monotone. "Breathe. Remember, everyone's naked underneath those clothes."

"Not helping not helping!" Willow bleated. "So. Um. Getting you two lovebirds hitched. I call upon all the Powers and Presences to smile and bless this union. If there is any here now who would oppose it, say it now--"

There was the sound of several dozen weapons of various types being slid in and out of sheaths.

"Probably better all around to be quiet," Willow continued.

Xander and Buffy joined hands, right to right, left to left, wrists intertwined.

Silence.

"Um, line?" Buffy said in a weak quaver. "Drawing a blank, here."

"C'mon, get this over with," yelled a brassy voice from the audience, "so we can hit the bar!"

"Shut up, Faith!" Buffy snapped.

"I should get things rolling," Xander said. Calm. Totally calm. "Buffy, not many guys can say that the girl they fell head over heels for they actually fell head over heels for. I've loved you ever since the day I met you. All the other women I loved, it was true and real. But looking back, all of them had a little bit of you in them. And you, right now, I see a little bit of every woman I ever loved. I'm so goddamn lucky to get the whole package."

"Oh," Buffy said, veil darkening from her tears, "how can I top that?"

"Don't know," Xander replied. He chuckled. "Also? Nice dress."

"It's a classic." Buffy sniffled. "What can I say? I've seen the worst in you. I've seen the best. You dragged me out of heaven and gave me back life when I lost all hope. You're my white knight."

Waves crashed on the beach.

"You're my heart," Buffy said, lifting the veil.

"Alexander Harris," Willow said, taking the rings from Riley. Thank you, Wills, for not spilling the Lavelle. "Do you take this woman to love, honour, and obey in a completely respectful and not at all dominating way?"

"I do." Xander slid the claddagh ring onto Buffy's left hand, heart pointing in.

"Darn tootin'," Willow said. "Buffy--"

"I do." Buffy placed the mate to hers onto his left ring finger.

"By drinking this wine," Willow said, giving them a glass goblet full of Nabbitt's best red, "I seal this bond. And by breaking this glass, which is absolutely not representative of a woman's hymen--"

"We get the picture, Wills," Xander said, taking the cloth-wrapped wineglass.

One black dress shoe and one cream pump hovered over the bundle, and then both stomped down with a crunch.

Oz swung into a rockabilly version of "Hava Negillah".

"I now declare you," Willow shouted as a wave of Slayers and Scoobies hoisted the two of them onto chairs in the middle of an ecstatic hora, "Xander and Buffy Anne Summers!"


	12. Chapter 12

Alexander Lavelle Summers. He liked the sound of it. Buffy certainly couldn't be saddled with the Harris name. Summers-Harris did not work. Harris-Summers? Could be abbreviated to "Hummers". Which Buffy gave with gusto and pride, but not something you wanted to advertise. When you got down to it, he was hers. A Summers man to the end.

Xander sat in the back of the restaurant watching the guests hardy their party. It was oh dark thirty and the Slayers were still going strong. Mere mortals had bowed out hours ago. The Finns had had to catch a flight to Gitmo after getting a warning order from the Pentagon. Giles and Olivia had gone back to their hotel in Merida. Little Jenny had become fussy by sundown. Willow snoozed in a corner, red hair spilling over Kennedy's lap. Dawn was with the African Slayers learning whole new languages. By the bar, Uncle Rory iced down his wrist after the unfortunate Slapping of Faith's Ass incident. He'd probably get back full function in a month. The rest of the young women on the dance floor circled about Buffy and Faith in a full-on dance-off. The competition had become heated enough that a swimming pool full of red Jell-O loomed in the near future.

He sensed rather than saw the man grab the seat on his right. There was no mistaking that outfit. Only one guy on Earth wore Hawaiian shirts more radioactive than those that had lurked in the depths of Xander's closets. Huh. So he had finally made it. Xander thought he might be too busy to show up. Plucking one from his shirt pocket, he handed over one of Rory's cigars and a wooden match. Uncle Rory's stogies were usually classified as chemical weapons. All rolled by hand on the thighs of the fattest Tijuana hookers. His guest seemed to relish the smoke. The cigar illuminated a face only a mother could love. If said mother had been a pug trapped in a car crusher.

"Thought you'd be out there with her, kid," he said, tipping down a beaten feodora.

"I like the quiet," Xander said, sipping from a shot glass of mescal. He chased it Mexican-style with a little dashed habenero. "Glad you could make it, Kosh."

"Loved that series," Whistler said. "But Wolfram and Hart got to the network after all."

"Fifth season had to be from infernal influence." Xander waved a billow of toxic smoke away. "I couldn't have done it without you, Whistler. Half the girls would have been lost before I got to them."

"I didn't do much," Whistler answered. He poured his own neat shot of the fiery liquor. "A word here and there. You did all the legwork."

"You're good with the kind words in the right place," Xander said, single eye narrowed.. "'You're beat, kid. There's this little place down Mexico way called Progreso.' You also have a chat with the baggage handlers at Narita? Another big bad headed our way, you need all the Avengers assembled?"

"Kid, you have any idea what applecarts you've turned over?" Whistler tipped back in his chair. "Forget about destroying the Hellmouth and shutting out the First Evil from this dimension for at least a century. Once word about Anyanka's sacrifice got out, half of the vengeance demons quit over her example. Most of the apocalypse cults are keeping their heads down so you people don't land on their heads. Quietest it's been in millenia."

"Well, we are kinda awesome," Xander said. "So? Just here for the nuptial bliss?"

"Balance, kid." Whistler munched down on a left-over taco. "Damn, this is why I stick up for your species. These, Coney dogs, and mini-golf courses. Anyway, everyone thinks the Balance is the big things. Light and Dark, Good and Evil, Order and Chaos. But as above, so below. Balance is in the little things, too."

"Me, balance her?" Xander smirked. "I can admit I'm finally of the cool. But, c'mon, I'm just a guy trying to crawl with the champions. There are days when I'm glad they made me jockstrap boy."

"That girl," Whistler said, burning cigar thrusting at the blonde Slayer dancing on the bar, "is leading the biggest alliance against the Old Ones ever seen. So much power and potential even the Powers are hunkering down waiting to see which way the chips will fall. So, some of us think it's important that she has someone around to make her look to her left, every so often."

"That's a pretty huge job you handed me," Xander said. He finished off his shot.

"Those shoulders look big enough for it." Whistler puffed away. "So, what are you going to do?"

"Well, I've decided," Xander said as he rose, "to go down there, drag my hot wife off the bar, find a broom closet, and bang her like a drum. If the Powers need us, leave a message after the tone."

Whistler's cracked laugh was lost to the beat of the music.

++++

"I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,  
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,  
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,  
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking."

Buffy's clear voice filtered down the companionway into the cabin. It was a poem her grandfather Roger used to sing sea-chantey style. Hunched over the saloon table, Xander listened to her sing while he worked out the course. They had passed through the Yucatan Channel after several days tacking against the wind and currents along the peninsula. Finally the trades were with them. Cancun to starboard, Isla Mujeres to port. Down the coast to Ambergris Caye and exploring Chetumal Bay, with snorkeling the coral reefs off Belize next on the menu. He noted down the wind and weather in the leather-bound log book.

"I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide  
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;  
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,  
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying."

He cooked up a quick meal of canned stew on the tiny alcohol-fueled range in the galley. No fridge--most of their meals were freeze-dried or canned. Although the Xander Fishing Drought did not count when you had a Slayer with a spear-gun and epic lung capacity. Fresh fish every day. Her distaste of the gutting didn't extend to adding ceviche to their diet. Taking two plates, Xander carried them into the cockpit. Buffy sat by the helm keeping station with a hand on the wheel and the other on the sheets. A jib had been raised on the bowsprit along with the gaff-rigged mainsail for the night transit. The Heart sailed on the due-east wind on a beam reach south.

"Madame," he announced in his best fake maitre d' accent, "ratatouille a la Campbell's."

"Merci," she said as she took her plate. "Gotta love the fine dining."

"You should taste my gazelle steak," Xander said.

"You hunt?" Buffy's fork paused halfway to her mouth. "You kill Bambi?"

"Again, this is the woman who slays big scary demons," Xander said. "Circle of life, Buff. Bush meat's important when the nearest supermarket is a thousand miles away in Jo'Burg."

"But, doe, a deer!" Buffy stabbed with her fork for emphasis. "Gazelles are cute! With the little Nike swooshes."

"They're nature's Big Macs on hooves." Xander grinned. "Fine. Just pretend the luscious medium rare goodness coming out of the camp kitchen came from a replicator."

"I thus live in happy ignorance." Buffy scooped up a forkful of stew. "Think we can make it to Africa in this?"

"Oh, hell no!" Xander shook his head. "Going west means heading down to the Roaring Forties. Slocum went through Sunnydale-level hell in those waters. Clipper route is dangerous. We could get through the Panama Canal easy, but across the Pacific in this? Even you're not that good yet."

"I guess we can moor the boat in Costa Rica or Panama," Buffy said.

"Or deck cargo," Xander said, taking over the helm while his wife ate. "Kennedy's family owns a shipping line along with, well, practically everything else. Stick it on deck, kick back in a passenger cabin, and let others do the work."

"That would be of the good." Buffy savoured a hunk of meat and veg. "I am eating for two now."

"Yeah." Xander blinked. "What?"

"Anya's smiling down from heaven. A bunny died." Buffy took out a small object from her denim cut-offs. "Blue. Baby Smurf."

"When?" Xander demanded.

"Broom closet," Buffy said, teeth flashing white in the moonlight. "Remember, Mr. 'Oh, So You Ran Out Of Pills and I Don't Have A Condom, What Are The Odds?' Had a feeling, checked three days running. Talk about a surprise birthday gift."

"Kid. We're having a kid." Xander jumped up. He waved his braided captain's hat in a wild flourish. "I'm having a kid! My sperm is mighty!"

"Sit down!" Buffy yanked him down beside her. "Boom, head, ouch much?"

"A baby." Xander's smile became a rictus. "We're having a kid. With me and my dad as the role model and oh God--"

Buffy rattled a pair of handcuffs.

"No, I'm good," Xander said. He scraped a huge portion of stew into his mouth. "Umf. Ungh. Brief moment of complete panic. Back to calm. Um--"

"Jesse if it's a boy, like we agreed." Buffy hugged him. "Tara if it's a girl."

"Heh." Xander grinned. "Flip you for calling Dawn with the news she's an aunt now."

"Hold the phone away from your ear if you win," Buffy said. "That ultrasonic squeal of hers, I swear has stunned bats."

Heedless of swinging booms and cracked heads, Xander exploded into the wildest Snoopy Dance ever.

"I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,  
To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;  
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover  
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over."


End file.
